


The Light Shall Lead

by tanukiham



Series: The Other Hawke [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, Non-Canonical Character Death, Templars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 04:13:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 57
Words: 254,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanukiham/pseuds/tanukiham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the end comes, Carver learns that duty sometimes makes you let go, while Fenris realises that freedom lets you hold on.</p><p>But it's never really the end, and the worst part is having to live through it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to The Other Hawke and The One You Feed. 
> 
> (Everything is so AU now that not reading the prequels will probably leave you completely lost at sea.)

It’s the mewing that gets to him. He can hear the thin pitiful sounds of distress through the wall and it makes him stop, put down his pen, and listen. There, again.

_It is unimportant._

It bloody well isn’t.

Anders shoves himself up out of his chair and his knees buckle. He’s been sitting too long, cramped up over the desk, and the shock of blood to his feet sets off sharp stabbing all down his legs. How long has he been at it this time? The hours drain away into the scratch of pen on paper and … _I can’t go on like this,_ he tells himself, again, _I can’t keep pushing myself._

But he has to. He knows it. There’s no other choice.

And now this _mewing_. He rubs a bit of magic into his shins, lets his blood settle, and goes out into the hall.

"What are you doing?"

Merrill looks startled, standing on the landing with both her arms wrapped around a wicker basket full of tatty bits of what appear to be old blankets. Old blankets that are mewing. "It’s perfectly all right. Leandra _said_ I could."

 _Defensiveness as a measure of guilt_. Anders … doesn’t actually believe that. He shakes his head. "Is that a kitten?" Because. It’s so obvious.

"Ye-es." Her face scrunches up, and she shifts her weight restlessly from foot to foot. "She’s not very well. But I fed her and … well. She might be all right."

"What do you mean?"

Anders takes a step forward and Merrill takes a step back, one hand coming up to hover over the basket of blankets. For a moment Anders is insulted -- does she think he’s going to hurt the poor thing? It’s a sodding kitten, honestly -- but there’s something in the wary set of her shoulders that he recognizes. _Mine. Stay away._ Yes. He knows what this is.

He clears his throat, licks his lips, and tries again. "May I look? She sounds distressed."

Merrill blinks her bright inhuman eyes at him, and then nods. "All right. I don’t know ver-ry much about cats." She opens up the blankets and there, nestled into them, is a very small, very sick kitten.

He has a hand on the little furry ribcage before he realizes he’s in motion, and then, yes, very sick, underfed (and definitely a she) and her lungs are so _wet_. "Well, you were right about her not being well. Andraste’s pants, what were you going to do with her?"

"Feed her and keep her warm," Merrill says solemnly, looking at the kitten and not him. "I thought I could make her comfortable. In case she was going to die. Or, if it got too bad, I thought I might have to, well, you know."

Anders hesitates, because she can’t mean-- "Put her out of her misery?"

Merrill nods, eyes very wide. "If I had to."

"Or you could have asked _me_. Merrill, I can’t believe you’d just--"

"If it had to be done," Merrill says stubbornly, her jaw set. “I would have.”

"Well it doesn’t. I can Heal her." To his surprise Merrill frowns, bites her lip. Is she _conflicted_? "What? You can’t possibly object to that." Of all people. "Come _on_ , Merrill. The kitten will die otherwise, I promise you. Don’t tell me you’re suddenly squeamish about,” and what else could it be? “Is it Justice?"

"Oh! No, not that." She strokes the kitten’s head, her mouth pensive. "I’m just not sure. If it’s the right thing to do. She’s so small, and Kirkwall is so big, and they kill birds, you know, not that there are many birds in Kirkwall, and it would be cruel to keep her indoors, but otherwise …"

"Cats like being kept," Anders argues. "She’d be better off in here than out there. Would you rather she died of pneumonia, or just of Kirkwall?"

Merrill sighs. "I don’t know. And I don’t want a cat, anyway, and if I did it would be selfish of me to save her just because I wanted her for myself."

For someone who doesn’t want one, she’s still terribly protective of it.

But somewhere in the back of his head Anders can’t help but feel she has a point, which is a little worrying. He prods at the thought, picks at it. It’s Justice, obviously, not himself, but the idea that Justice would ever side with a _blood mage_ is frankly preposterous.

It is a comparison Justice dislikes with the intensity of a headache. Anders takes a deep breath, rubs a hand over his brow, and tries to ignore it. "It’ll be fine. Just, let me Heal her." _Please, I want to._ "Please?"

Merrill’s face softens all at once. "Ohhh. I mean … all right."

So he does. It’s not hard, just intense, and he realises partway through that Leandra has come up the stairs and is watching them. He doesn’t let it distract; he’s not a skittish apprentice anymore, but it is unnerving, and when he finishes he glances up at her. She gives nothing away, nothing he can read, but he knows she’s unhappy that they are _doing magic again_ (as though he hasn’t heard her say the same thing to her son). 

But. It’s a kitten. Surely she must--

_Surely it does not matter what one woman thinks._

Surely it does.

She says nothing, though, and Merrill is so pleased that it takes him a moment to remember that it is _Merrill_ and he doesn’t care if she’s _pleased_ , by which time Leandra has left them alone.

“She looks _much_ better! I can … Can you feel that? She’s _glowing_!”

“Like a baby,” Anders says, and he strokes the kitten. They feel so good. Maker, how he’d like a cat. (And, with a pang, he wonders how Hawke must miss his mabari, though Anders hadn’t cared for her at all.) “It’s her Fade-shadow.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cats. They … they’re magical. Don’t you--” but then again, she’s Dalish, and he wonders if the Dalish have cats like these. “Cats have a connection to the Fade. Like mages do. Except--” _not as attractive to demons_ , “they can’t cast. Obviously.”

“Like a leopard?” Merrill tucks the blanket around her charge and then holds it out of reach again. “I didn’t know that.”

_The wealth of things you do not know._

It makes him shudder.

“A-anders.” It is drawn out, turning up at the end almost into a question. Merrill is frowning, and then she glances down, twisting a foot against the hall rug. “I know you don’t like Fenris, but--”

“Don’t _like_ him?” Justice bucks; Anders takes a deep breath. “I have no reason to like him, and nor do you, honestly, Merrill--”

“I know!” And she pats her kitten-basket as though soothing a child. “I _said_ I know, and I _do_ know, _really_ , but it’s not Orana’s fault, and I just wondered, maybe, if you would look in on her.” Merrill’s face pinches into something heartfelt that he doesn’t like. “You know, if you go out with Hawke and you see her--”

“Does it bother you? When he takes me with him?” He has wanted to ask this for a long time, and it just spills out without warning.

She frowns at him, breathes in, holds it a moment. “Does it bother _you_? When he takes me?” She wrinkles her nose. “He would take you more often if you'd only come out of your room. Do you know how he misses you?”

“Why do you care?” How could she?

Her mouth makes a perfectly round o. “Would you not?”

“I wouldn’t care if he missed _you_.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it again, very hard. “You are a cruel man,” she says, low and dark and, oh, how dangerous.

“I’m just willing to defend what’s mine,” he says, and her eyes narrow but her mouth quivers.

“As though anything could ever be yours,” she says sharply, and then she’s gone across the landing, still with her basket in her arms.

_She is nothing. Her words mean nothing. It does not matter what she thinks._

But he can’t shake the feeling that it does.

* * *

He doesn’t shut himself in his room, it’s just that he’s so _tired_. None of them, not Hawke nor Leandra (nor Merrill) understand; he works all day. They don’t. Leandra in particular seems to do nothing of importance, though she’s always busy with _something_. The woman could be a force of good in this sodding rathole of a city, but instead she seems determined to throw parties. 

Anders avoids them all. He isn’t exactly welcome anyway.

When there is nothing else on at the Amell estate, and he isn’t halfway down the Wounded Coast soaked to the skin with rain and blood and spider guts, Hawke invites Anders downstairs. He does it almost identically every time; he comes to the door, leans on the frame, and makes polite, invitational conversation until Anders manages to convince him that _no_ , he won’t be coming downstairs, or finally gives in and does so.

And when he does it is always the same. Hawke and Merrill chatter about nothing, and then play parlour games with magic and try to get him to join in. It’s (pleasant) irritating. They’re both so bad at it.

“No, no,” and Anders gets down on his knees on the hearthrug, holding his hands about six inches apart. “You brush it with spirit. Then it’s far more ghostly.” He trots an ethereal horse back and forth between his palms. “You see?”

Merrll claps, and tries, and Hawke looks suitably impressed, which is gratifying at least.

Hawke can do a thing that makes the whole room smell like a dry field on a summer’s day, so rich with nostalgia that Anders has to make himself remember that he does not himself know what that smells like. Merrill can summon a host of tiny winking wisps like fireflies that smell like snow, can make them dance, can fly them in patterns against the shadows of the room.

Anders can do the electricity trick, but he doesn’t. It’s not the right time.

With Hawke around, Anders forgets how much he hates Merrill. It’s even easier on the nights when Hawke is tippling lyrium. He feels content, then, and Merrill isn’t awful, really. She’s just … she’s just Merrill.

On the nights he is home and Hawke manages to wheedle him out of his room, Hawke always, always invites Anders to bed. Anders almost always accepts. Justice sometimes disapproves, but not so much on Hawke’s lyrium nights, which is something Anders does his best not to think about.

Usually it goes a certain way. Hawke is charming, Anders takes off his clothes (both of their clothes) and then they tangle stickily in bed until, well. That. And then they tangle further, and in the morning Bodahn leaves both their breakfast trays outside Hawke’s bedroom door (another thing Anders tries not to think about).

Tonight, though, it is raining, and Anders closes his eyes, leaning on Hawke’s chest and tilting his head so that his ear is full of rooftop rain instead of Hawke’s heartbeat. Tonight the rain is heavy, dense, and Anders likes it that way. In the Tower, rain was always something real, something from outside, something to seek out and touch. Anders hadn’t been the only apprentice to lean as far out a window slit as possible, trying to catch raindrops in his palm. They had always tasted so _good_ , though largely, if he is honest, of his own skin. That wasn’t the point.

There is a flash of lightning and then, so suddenly, thunder, and the rain shifts, taking a new direction. “Oh!” Anders didn’t mean to say it aloud and it makes him feel foolish. Still. “Did you hear that?”

“I couldn’t miss it.” Hawke cards his fingers through Anders’ sweaty hair. “Do you think--” The lightning cracks again, loud enough that Anders would swear he _felt_ it. “There we go. Though, that means we’re probably about to have company.”

“What do you--”

But the door opens, of bloody course.

“Hawke?”

Hawke lifts a hand, waves. “It’s all right. Come in.”

“Oh.” Merrill stops, hovering in the doorway. She can _see_ them, the candles are still lit, and Anders refuses to be embarrassed though maybe he would be if he weren’t so thoroughly covered in blankets.

“It’s _all right_.” Hawke smooths a hand over the covers on his side of the bed. “Plenty of room.”

Anders can’t help himself. “Don't tell me you're afraid of lightning?” 

Merrill snorts. “ _No_.” She closes the door, but hovers still, in a little slip of a night-gown, her hands tight against her middle. “But it echoes in the house, so. And whenever it rained, we... the clan, I mean. We used to nest together. It was nice.”

“Mmm, come and nest, Merrill.” Hawke beckons and she comes, and Anders can feel a strange sullen anger growing in his gut. _Stop it._ But they are neither of them-- _I said ‘stop’._ There is nothing they can do. Anders isn’t about to storm out, not when he’s so sodding comfortable. And he doesn't want to.

Merrill goes first to the window, pulling the curtains open and then unlatching the shutter. The scent of rain and tangy lightning blooms in the air, and the shock of cold blown in makes Anders shudder and burrow under the blankets.

He can feel Hawke’s satisfaction, like a comforting rub of fingers down his spine, and lets himself be shuffled onto a colder part of the bed to make room. Hawke’s lucky he’s so warm, honestly, or Anders would just leave.

There’s some shifting of limbs on the other side of the bed, and Anders tries to ignore it. He cannot ignore the easy way that Hawke accommodates her, though, how she fits under his arm. And then, when she reaches up to scruff Hawke’s beard, how it makes Hawke chuckle.

“So _prickly_.”

“I like my beard. Anders, do you like my beard?”

Anders huffs, closing his eyes. “I like beards.” But, to be honest-- “Yours is one of the better ones.”

“Not exactly _dwarven_ , though. Such a pity.”

Merrill hums. “I like Varric’s chest. That’s dwarven. Like a pelt.”

“Oh? Am I not hairy enough for you, even with the beard?”

“No, you’re lovely. You don’t want to be _too_ hairy.”

“Now I’m not sure if I ought to shave or not.”

“Don’t,” Anders mumbles. Thunder breaks overhead, and suddenly the rain is coming down in a torrent. “Don’t you dare touch the beard.”

“I like how possessive that sounds,” and Hawke has his fingers in Anders’ hair, leaking magic that melts over his scalp in a delicious _shudder_. The link between them is so much a part of him now that Anders barely registers it, except for times like this when he can feel it pulse in response. It’s soothing. It quiets the rumble of irritation in his bowels, smooths him out, settling him in a way that’s difficult to define.

This is all right, isn’t it? Even with Merrill _there_ , this is … enough. For now. It has to be.

* * *

“Because he’s got an enormous sword,” Hawke says, grinning and teasing the sleeve of Anders’ coat between his fingers. “I need his enormous sword to get between me and everything in Darktown and _stay_ there. And I need _you_ to make sure the everything in Darktown doesn’t cost me one swordsman with an enormous sword. Or, you know, my ribcage, that sort of thing.”

He always does that, the horrible reminder of the time it _had_ cost him a ribcage. Anders feels like a struck bell, shaken by how casually he says these things. “Fine! Fine … though I wish there were anybody else.”

“Carver can’t come out to play and Aveline’s a Grey Warden now,” Hawke says, and he shrugs, loping easily across Hightown. Damn his legs. Anders isn’t _short_ , but he does have to jog to keep up. “It’s not as though I’m exactly spoilt for choice.”

“I’d welcome Aveline back with open arms,” Anders mutters, and Hawke chuckles, teeth flashing white in the depths of his beard.

“Your sister Warden,” he says, his breath a mist in the chilly winter afternoon.

It’s true, though Anders has never thought of it like that. “I suppose she is. And good at it, I expect. I can’t imagine her settling for any less.”

“I bet our big girl is an absolute _monster_ of a Warden,” Garrett agrees, catching Anders' hand and squeezing it, his palm warm and comforting in all this merciless cold. "Good for her."

"I thought you might hate Fenris. Since he broke things off with your brother." Not that Anders cares, it's just another thing to needle Hawke about, when Anders doesn't want to go into Fenris' bloody broken-down mansion because ... because he _doesn't_.

"We talked. You know that. I told you."

"You told me your brother was _wounded_. I don't understand--"

"And you hate my brother." Hawke smiles, but it is a fake smile, one that Anders actually does hate. He doesn't hate Carver. He just ... doesn't care how hurt a Templar might be about, well, anything. "So. Enemy of your enemy, right?"

"I dislike Fenris more than your bloody brother," Anders says, feeling conflicted and, and angry, though he cannot say why.

"Well, think of him a necessary evil, if it helps," Hawke says, letting go of Anders and knocking on the door of Fenris’ mansion. “Hello, Orana. I’d like to see Fenris, please, if he’s in.”

Orana curtsies; Anders sees the pull of fabric across the bloom of her belly and he _knows_.

Hawke bolts up the stairs but Anders hangs back, examining her with a Healer’s eye for detail and, yes, now he’s looking he can practically feel it.

“Orana,” he says, gently as he can because she is so skittish. “May I talk to you for a moment? Privately?”

She curtsies again. “Of course, messere.” She takes him into the kitchen. “How may I serve?”

This is delicate. “Orana, you know that I’m a Healer, don’t you?” She nods, not meeting his eye. “I’ve noticed ... you seem to be showing.” He makes a circular gesture near her waist. It must be universal; she understands his meaning at once, one hand flattening against herself, and yes, with the fabric held tight he can see it very clearly. “May I use my magic to examine you?”

She nods, and permits him to place a hand on her belly. There. She’s about six months along. He’s surprised he hadn’t noticed earlier, but then it isn’t as though he spends much time visiting Fenris. _And Merrill knew. How is that?_

“Well. Did you know you were with child?” he asks. This is a difficult conversation and he thinks it will only become more difficult if he has to ask the next question.

She nods, and then shakes her head a little. “I believed ... yes, messere. I hoped.”

And that answers that. He’s faintly relieved. Shaking unwanted babies loose isn’t something he enjoys, though he appreciates the necessity, but worse than the doing of it is the discussion, watching women sort through the choices and make often hasty decisions.

“Do you know who the father is?”

She looks down, nods, and he knows that expression, the one that says the father is largely irrelevant in this.

“Will you tell me who it is, Orana?”

She ducks her head. “Messere,” she says, which from her is a refusal.

Anders is a suspicious man at the best of times. It is a survival trait, one that’s saved his skin (and got him into terrible trouble) and he can’t really help the devious part of himself that thinks, puzzles, and comes to conclusions that, perhaps, are not founded on anything more than a cynical instinct for the way things work. Especially the way people work. People are usually predictable.

And now? He suspects. And the suspicion awakens an anger in him that he suspects is not entirely his own.

“Well, your baby is healthy. If you eat well and don’t do too much lifting, you should be fine. I’ll look in on you, to make sure. If anything changes, you know where I live.” Everyone knows, now. Hawke’s pet abomination. None of them really understand how it is.

She agrees, curtsies, and he marches upstairs, fully prepared to give Fenris a piece of his mind.

Hawke is at the top of the stairs, coming down. “There you are.” He brushes a hand over Anders’ hip, smiling. “I’m done here. Are you coming?”

“I’ll be a minute,” Anders tells him, and Hawke catches his wrist, pulling him back, demanding as always.

“You’re not going to kill each other, are you?” His smile is charming and jovial, and Anders is useless before it. “I need Fenris for tomorrow, and I’d _miss_ you.”

Anders sighs. “What if I promise to only kill him a little bit?”

“That’s my boy,” Hawke says with a grin, and the ridiculousness of being called ‘boy’ by someone five years younger than him is so endearing it takes some of the fire out of Anders’ righteous anger.

Still. He goes in, seething, and it must billow around him like smoke because when Fenris looks up his eyes widen. It’s not fear. Not from him. It’s more like recognition of a threat, because that is what Anders is, right now, a threat to him.

“Mage,” he grunts. “If you have come to plague me with arguments--”

“Shut up.” Fenris looks suitably indignant, and Anders plunges on while he still has a heart beating in his chest. “You need to know this. Orana is pregnant.”

Fenris goes very still. “What?”

“She’s six months pregnant. She’s going to have a baby. Soon. And if she loses the babe because you let her work herself too hard, I swear, I’ll flay you alive.”

The elf bristles. “You may _try_ ,” he growls, taking a step forward.

“Is it yours?” Fenris stops. Anders asks again, “Is the child yours? Orana wouldn’t tell me who the father was, but I have a feeling it was you.”

It’s worth it just for the mixed horror and anger on the elf’s face. “Get out.”

“Am I right?”

“Get out of my house,” Fenris growls, striding across the room, and Anders backs up not because he’s afraid but because this is as close to confirmation as he’s going to get.

“Fine. I’ll be back though. Take care of her, if you have the spine for it.”

He skips back out of the room, pulling the door closed on Fenris’ furious expression.

“Still alive, then?” Hawke cocks his head on one side, amused as always. “Come on, before your luck runs out.”

* * *

Orana is downstairs and, though the door is open, has not yet come up. She should have, would have, he thinks, on any other day, but today she is staying belowstairs and he knows _why_. Or thinks he does. It is hard to tell, with her.

Fenris sits, taps his foot, stands again, and he does not know what he will say.

If only she would come up. Or, should he go down to her?

It is her business. 

He should not--

It is none of his business.

He sits down with his armour and goes one-by-one over the joints, with oil here and a bit of scour there, until she comes, making enough sound on the stairs for him to be warned of it even though they both know how much he does not care what she sees. She has a tray, with spiced grain and beans and hot soup, and a bottle of wine, already open. “Serrah.”

“Come in.” He wipes his hands on a cloth, moves to the place she has set for him. “Thank-you.”

She does look … thicker. In the waist. _It is so. Maybe._

She moves to the fire, bends down, and Fenris does not like it. “Orana.” He touches her arm and she stills, her hands on the ashbucket. “You should not. Let me.”

She shakes her head. “Serrah Fenris,” she says quietly.

“You will injure yourself,” he insists. “Or … the child.”

The look she gives him is decidedly un-slavelike. “I can keep working. I am _able_ to. I have done this before, Master.”

He lets the ‘Master’ pass this time, because he has more immediate concerns. “You have a child already?”

“I had,” she says, fingers shifting on the handle of the bucket. “A daughter.”

Had. Such a small word, redolent with meaning. “She died.”

Orana nods. “It was the crib sickness. She was very young.”

Fenris watches her lift the bucket and balance it against her hip. Her calmness is beyond him. “And the father?”

“He was not of my mistress’s household,” she tells him. Ah. He understands that, at least. She would never have expected much of the father, in that case, if they could not be together.

“And,” he gestures, “this father?”

Orana ducks her head. “Serrah.”

“You will not tell me?”

She ducks her head further. Her voice is very small. “If Master wishes.”

Which means that he cannot ask. “I am not your master. Do not, if you do not want. But,” and how to ask this? “Did he misuse you?”

“No, serrah.”

“Good.” He tries again for the bucket, and again she holds it away from him. “Will you _not_ let me help you?”

“Not with this, serrah.” Her smile is small but it is there. “I can do this myself.”

So he lets her. What else can he do?


	2. Chapter 2

The baby comes in the spring, and it is the worst thing Fenris has ever known. When it is Orana’s time they come into his house and _will not let him see her_ , and it is hard enough to trust Merrill, who is at least an elf and a _woman_ , but when the Abomination turns him away it is a wrench. Still, he goes. He sits on the stairs, waits, paces, and _waits_ and _paces_ , and he is so useless in this, and it _keeps happening_. 

After, Anders says it was an easy birth, that Orana is very undemanding, and Fenris knows the truth of it and that Anders, for all his faults, is an excellent Healer. The babe is well, Orana is well, and Fenris tries to find the words to thank Anders but they are sour and stick in his throat. Anders does not seem to expect thanks, in any case, just harangues Fenris with instructions while Merrill watches over his shoulder, occasionally interrupting with unasked for advice.

When finally they are gone, and he is building up the fire because it is still not warm enough for a _baby_ , Orana turns to him, tired and worn but so happy.

"Serrah."

"You should be resting." Anders gave so many instructions, and first among them was that Orana needs her rest, to be warm, to eat when she wants, and Fenris has been tending the stew pot sitting now on the hearthstone, ready for when she _is_ hungry.

"I am well. Will you see him?"

Him. The baby. Fenris does not know. They are all the same, surely, little pale things that are too helpless and too useless and make his palms itch for reasons he does not comprehend. _The child is a boy. Is that significant? Would it be different if it were a girl?_

"I will," he says, though, because that seems to be what Orana wants, so he kneels down beside the pallet they have made for her in the kitchen near the fire. Orana opens the swaddling she holds cradled against her shoulder, and there, the babe, small and wrinkled and red, its eyes scrunched tight and its mouth open. It is ... ugly. So red. Fenris has never seen one so small before, and he cannot help it when his mouth twists in disgust. "He looks like a piece of meat."

"They do, at first." Orana does not seem concerned, stroking her fingers down the ruddy cheek, tenderly touching the fragile chin. The baby's ears are pointed, and that, at least, is significant.

"He is elven."

"Of course, serrah," and Orana seems surprised.

"The father is an elf."

Her smile is puzzled. "Of course."

Perhaps not significant, then, no more significant than the baby's gender, but Fenris cannot help but feel it is, in some way. "Will you eat?"

She ducks her head, suddenly awkward. "There is no need, serrah. I will feed myself, when ... in a little while."

She is so difficult. "I will bring you something. If you do not eat it, that is your choice." So he ladles out two bowls and places hers on the floor beside her, with a spoon to one side and a cup of watered wine.

Fenris' stew is no match for the food she makes, he realises, tasting it. It needs salt, so he fetches some, and even then.

"This is not ... appetising. Forgive me. You are the better cook, by far."

"Thank-you for making it. It is not necessary."

He would argue with her, but it would be inappropriate, just now, when she is so weakened. And arguing with Orana is a useless enterprise at the best of times.

Soon she sleeps, and Fenris is conscious of the babe in its swaddling, tucked up against her side. It seems precarious. What if she rolls onto it? What if it is smothered? He. What if _he_ is smothered?

He cannot bear to leave her alone, cannot stomach watching her sleep, so he brings a book and a blanket and a wine bottle, and makes a nest for himself by the fire. It becomes pleasant. He eats more of the stew, though it is unpalatable, reads his book. It is, he realizes, not the book he had intended to read but one that has been sitting unattended for some time, one he had stopped reading because--

_”Ob-fus-cate,” Carver read, brow wrinkling. “What does_ that _mean?”_

_“To hide or conceal. To render a thing difficult to see.”_

_Carver snorted, settling against Fenris’ side. “Why can’t people just say ‘hide’ then?”_

_“Because the world is not built for_ your _comfort, as though you are a mollusk with your shell grown around you.”_

_“Hmmm." Carver kissed Fenris on the shoulder, on the side of his neck, on the ridge of one ear. "What’s a mollusk?”_

_“A sea creature. Like the ones you call ‘cockles’.”_

_“Oh, those.” Carver tangled his troublesome fingers beneath the sheets, and Fenris growled, turning to him, the book forgotten, and he--_

He refuses to remember it. As he refuses to remember how warm Carver could be, how easy to curl against in the depths of winter, how his arms would circle and hold, and the familiarity of sour breath in the mornings, of slow lazy kisses and the satisfaction that he was _not alone_.

There is an ache in the place where he used to think of these things and now will not, and he refuses to think of that either.

* * *

When the babe opens his eyes they are shockingly blue, bright as a summer sky, a colour Fenris has come to think of as inherently Fereldan. He stares, and the child stares back, and he is so _solemn_.

He fattens up quickly enough, no longer red and raw and wrinkled. Fenris is unsure how these things are done but he suspects that the child should be taken to the Chantry and, and he does not know. Do they register his birth? Or do they not, because he is an elf? He does not yet have a name, and Fenris thinks he should.

When he ventures this, hesitant in his ignorance, Orana agrees. “Will you name him, serrah?”

Fenris shakes his head. “I do not know how to name him. He looks like,” and he skates his palm over the baby’s head. “A bean.”

“He is,” Orana agrees. She kisses the baby’s milk-fat tummy. “My little bean.”

After that, Fenris watches the babe carefully, seeking signs of something individual from which to draw a name. He is snub-nosed, bow-legged, plump-bellied, rose-cheeked, blue-eyed, dun-haired, yet none of these will do, for Fenris suspects much of this is true of all babies.

Orana tries a string of epithets, changing every few days: Pavo, Milo, Silus, Remus. None of them stick. Once Fenris overhears her using ‘Leto’ and firmly puts a stop to it because, no. She always goes back to ‘Bean’ though, which makes Fenris smirk.

The babe spends most of his time in a sling bound to Orana’s chest. Sometimes, when kneeling at the hearth, she unwinds him and lays him down in a puddle of cloth on the floor beside her. Fenris hovers, uncertain, misliking this intensely.

“He could be trodden upon.”

Orana smiles. “I know where he is.”

“But ... if I did not see him, I might.”

Her smile is bright. “You know where he is, serrah. You are looking at him.”

And, if she lays him on a bench-- “He could _fall_.”

Orana wipes her face with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of dust. “You may hold him, serrah, if it troubles you.”

“I do not--” It _does_ trouble him. “How do I hold him?”

She helps him, settling the child against his chest and tucking the winding-cloth around the baby like a blanket. He is such a tiny, soft little thing, and looks up with polished-glass eyes, opening and closing his hands like the wings of a butterfly or the claws of a crab. “What does he want?” Fenris asks, because that is what this grasping means, is it not?

“For now, nothing. But he will clutch your finger if you let him.”

Fenris sits in an armchair, pulling up his knees and cradling the baby in his lap. He offers the child a finger. At first he ignores it, still gazing up at Fenris’ face. Fenris wonders how he appears to the babe, if he is strange, severe, monstrous. But then, everything is strange to this little person, this new grub, and white hair and lyrium would be no more strange to him than horns to the babe of a kossith or a braided beard to a dwarven child.

A tiny hand closes on his finger and then will not let go. It amazes him how strong the babe is, how tenacious. He runs his thumb across the fragile knuckles, feeling the delicate softness of bones and silken skin.

And then -- “Ahh!”

Orana is at his side in an instant. “Serrah? Are you all right?”

“He is...” The babe is _suckling on his finger_. “Perhaps the lyrium will harm him.”

“I do not believe so,” Orana says, stroking the babe’s fluffy head.

It’s remarkable how strong that little mouth is. “He is ... persistent,” Fenris says. “Perhaps he is hungry.”

“I will feed him soon.”

Fenris feels that Orana is not sufficiently concerned. “Do you not think he needs feeding _now?_ ”

She looks at him, opens her mouth, and then pauses. “Would you like to see, serrah?”

“What?”

“Here,” and she extracts the child from his arms. He lets go reluctantly. The soft little thing, with its soft skin.

Orana turns her back, fusses with her blouse for a moment, and then kneels on the floor at his feet, her back up against the arm of his chair. “See?”

He leans forward to look over her shoulder. The child is fastened to her, his face scrunched up in concentration. It is oddly intimate to watch, yet natural enough. He wonders if it would be so comfortable with Isabela, or any other woman, or if it is only like this because neither he nor Orana are accustomed to the luxury of privacy and this, at least, has nothing of the usual traffic between men and women about it.

“Does he hurt you?” Fenris asks, curious. The furiously working little mouth is so strong.

“Not yet. But, when his teeth come.”

Once, years ago, Fenris uncovered a bitch with her pups, sequestered in the stall of a barn. The bitch had snarled at him but the puppies, little fat things, had clustered to her belly, blissfully suckling away with no care for _him_ at all. And this is the same, a little fat thing filling with milk, unaware of any danger, unknowing of how easy it would be for his light to be snuffed out. A tiny puppy, velvet-soft and vulnerable. And one day? A hound? A beast? Who could even tell?

“Catulus,” he says.

Orana blinks at him. “Serrah?”

“A name.”

Orana’s mouth makes an ‘O’ of understanding. “It is a grand name, serrah. He is such a little thing now, though, for such a grand name.”

“You can always keep calling him ‘Bean’,” Fenris snorts. “Until he grows into it.”

So they do.


	3. Chapter 3

The tattoos are, of course, the first priority. They all get the same, a Chantry sunburst, and Carver gets his high up on his chest, same side as the Sword of Mercy. Ruvena and Paxley get theirs on the shoulder, but Hugh's is low on his back, just above his trousers, and Ruvena rags him mercilessly about the sun shining out of his arse. 

Hugh is the only one who doesn't let Selwyn Heal it for him; Selwyn is annoyed in any case, and only does it because Carver slips him a bottle of firewhiskey and promises to take him up to the estate next chance they get for another Healing lesson. Selwyn mutters about the Chantry the whole while, and gives Carver a particularly filthy look as they leave.

Carver doesn't care. He slings an arm around Paxley's shoulders and grins at him, and Paxley grins back. "Ser Carver," he says cheerfully.

"Ser Paxley," Carver counters, and then hauls Paxley in to kiss the side of his head. "About bloody time."

"You're _disgusting_ ," Hugh complains, so Carver hooks his other arm around Hugh's shoulders and makes kiss-faces at him.

"Fuck _off_!"

"Fuck off _ser_ ," Carver corrects him cheerfully, but lets him go.

They're all a little drunk by now, drunker than Barker or Margitte; they declined the tattoos in favour of rounding up supplies, and are waiting for them at the docks with a basket full of bread, cheese, pickles, and wine.

And then. It's a gorgeous day, perfect for it, and even the Wounded Coast is pretty enough with the sunshine and the bottle-green sea spreading wide and glittering to the horizon. Carver takes them to a beach he remembers, though he tries not to think about the last time he was here, wrestling with Isabela and, and yeah, all of that. It's easy, though, here in the sun with his friends.

"To Ser Paxley," Barker proposes, holding up a cup. 

"To Pax!"

Hugh chuckles. "Better late than never, hey?"

"Well done, Paxley," Margitte offers, smiling very sweetly. "Never a better man was ever knighted."

Paxley's face is flushed, though Carver can’t be sure whether it’s the drink or the sun. "Oh, I don't know. Our Knight Corporal's all right, wouldn't you say?"

"Pfft, he’ll do," and Ruvena bunts Carver with her shoulder, smirking over her cup. "In a pinch."

"It's not a bloody competition," Carver argues, and now she's laughing at him so he rubs sand in her hair.

"Oh, you bleeding--"

Which is how it begins. She doesn't hit him, but he does end up chest first in the sand with one arm twisted up behind his back, and it's because he refuses to hit _her_ , honestly, it's not fair and she's cheating. And won't stop crowing about it.

"Fucking _mercy_ , you sodding _bitch_!"

"Winner, you mean." She lets him up. He rubs his shoulder and scowls at her, but there's no point. And it's such a nice day.

"We should play a game," Paxley says, stretching out on the sand and dropping his bare feet into Carver's lap. Carver shoves them off, and Paxley grins at him. "Come on, it's my day. You said I was the king, remember?"

Ruvena snorts, tickling the bottom of his foot until he kicks her away. "All right, King Pax. What do you want to play?"

Paxley sits up, eyes bright and mischievous. "Never have I ever," he starts, and frowns when they all groan. "Come _on_! It's fun."

"If you're _twelve_ ," Hugh argues, but he opens another bottle and tops up everyone's drinks. "You go first, though."

Paxley chews his lip thoughtfully, and then he nods. "Okay. Never have I ever eaten dog."

Everyone looks at Carver and Carver just blinks at them. "What? We don't eat dogs in Ferelden, we _marry_ them, remember?"

"You have to drink, Pax," Ruvena says, poking him in the ankle. "Waste of a question."

"Fair cop," Paxley accedes, and he drinks, and then he gestures to Carver. "You're up."

"Never," Carver says carefully, because this game is fucking dangerous, "have I ever kissed a Chantry sister."

Hugh laughs and drinks, but then Ruvena drinks too and Paxley makes a scandalised noise. "Rue! You, you _tart_."

"Pffft, you would if you could," she says cheerfully, and she winks at Hugh who has gone a peculiar colour. "Right, Hughsie?"

Margitte clears her throat. "Never have I ever stood guard duty with a hangover." The rest of them groan and drink, and she tuts, shaking her head. "Oh, Ser Barker. How could you?"

"Hawke's fault," Barker protests, fixing Carver with a baleful look. "You, Knight Corporal, are a bad influence."

Carver is about to protest that no, that was Thessaly, but thinks better of it. "Yeah, whatever you reckon."

"Never have I ever," Hugh starts loudly, and there is a look in his eye Carver doesn't like, "done it with an _elf_."

Ruvena leans across Barker to smack Hugh on the shoulder. "Twat." But she drinks, and that makes it not so bad when Carver drinks too.

Barker is frowning at Hugh, and is very pointed when he says, "Never have I ever flubbed the Canticle of Benedictions in front of a senior officer."

Hugh scowls. "You fucker, that was _one time_." He finishes his cup and re-fills it. "Go on, Rue. Do your bloody worst, then.”

"Never have I ever fancied getting off with the Knight Commander." Her grin is sly, and Carver’s glad again that she’s his friend and probably won’t do anything like that to _him_.

Hugh makes a face, drinks, and shrugs. "What? She's a woman, under all that armour. Tell me none of you ever did."

Ruvena and Carver exchange looks. She smirks. "No-one else is drinking, what does that tell you?"

"Okay, fine then. Never have I ever fancied getting off with the Knight _Captain_ ," and it's not Hugh's turn, so Carver is waiting for someone to tell him off for it and that's why it takes him a moment to realise they're all looking at _him_.

"What? Sod off, you lot."

Ruvena sighs, lifting her cup. "To the Knight Captain and his glorious arse. 'Bottoms' up."

"Oh, as though you've ever seen it," Paxley scoffs. "He doesn't even take his baths with the rest of us."

"Yeah, but I've seen it in trousers. Damn fine rear, that's all I'm saying. Right, Hawke?"

Carver opens his mouth to say that he doesn't know, and that the Knight Captain doesn't bathe with them because he has his own private washroom, but then realises he'll have to explain how he knows that and 'because I threw up on the floor of it once' isn't a conversation he ever wants to have. "I don't fancy getting off with the Knight Captain." Their skepticism is obvious and annoying. "I bloody don't!"

"Yeah, right." Hugh belches, and Margitte leans away from him, her nose wrinkling. "You just wanna lick his boots, not his balls."

Barker makes a disgusted noise. "That's disrespectful and inappropriate."

"Come _on_! Everybody knows. Just drink, Hawke."

"Or," Paxley offers, "take a forfeit."

Carver glares at them and sets his cup down in the sand. "What's the forfeit?"

Paxley thinks for a moment, and then-- "You have to take a swim."

It's not much of a forfeit, so Carver nods. "Yeah, all right."

"Naked," Paxley adds gleefully.

It's still not much of a forfeit. "Fine." He struggles to his feet and starts stripping, and maybe he's drunk, but it's worth it for the horrified look on Hugh's face. "Not like there's anything in my pants you haven't already seen, " Carver mocks him, and Hugh squeezes his eyes shut as though he's afraid of going blind.

"I try not to bloody look!"

"Maker's mercy, Hawke!" Barker has a hand up in front of Margitte's eyes, and tries to do the same for Ruvena but she swats him away. "There are ladies present!"

"I don't see any ladies," Carver argues, though he turns his back anyway to shed his trousers. "Just knights of the bleeding Order. Isn't that right, girls?"

"Is that a dog on your arse, Ferelden?" Ruvena asks. The sudden sharp slap of her palm on his bare skin makes him yelp.

"Fuck _off_!" he shouts, and then he takes off at a run for the water.

He regrets it almost at once; the sea is bloody _cold_ , emasculatingly so, and he bites down on his lip as he wades in up to waist. Shit! His balls might end up in his chest.

"Maker!" Paxley splashes in beside him, and clutches at himself. "Oh my _goodness_! Warn a bloke, can't you?"

"Didn't know you'd be joining me." Carver slaps the water, sluicing a sheet of it up into Paxley's face to see him splutter.

"Oh, you _ass_!"

They tussle. It's amusing partly because Paxley is a bit ginger about grabbing him anywhere suggestive, and Carver is drunk enough not to really care. He ends up dunking Paxley under the water, and then lets him alone. 

Paxley wipes his face with his palm, scowling. "That doesn't make you less of an ass, you know." 

Someone is whooping, someone that sounds like Hugh, and Carver turns just in time to see Ruvena sprinting for the water, one arm up over her tits and the other out for balance and--

Well, she’s not completely naked, but the tiny bit of cloth between her legs only covers the necessaries. He catches a flash of ink in the inside of her upper thigh -- so _that’s_ where she got that one -- before she plunges into the water. It makes her swear pretty loud, but she keeps on until she’s in deep enough to sink below the surface to her chin. “Fuck! Fucking … Maker!”

“You’re _shirtless_!” Paxley sounds equal parts scandalised and delighted. “Rue! In public, with _men_ about. What would your mother say?”

“Oh? And I suppose _your_ mother thinks it’s all fine and dandy.” She ducks all the way under and comes up again, wiping water out of her eyes and blinking into the blaze of afternoon sunlight. “Hah. Let’s see if Hugh’s got the stones for it. Don’t tell him how cold it is, I want to see him _suffer_ ”

They mess about. Carver is acutely aware that his junk is _exposed_ under the water, and also that, when she forgets, Ruvena flashes her breasts at them both while trying to dunk them. When Hugh finally gathers the balls to join them he keeps his pants on. More surprising is when Margitte comes in, still in her shirt, but she’s taken off whatever girls wear under their shirts and the cloth sticks to her skin like wet paper, hiding not very much at all.

It’s a blessing, really, that the water’s as cold as it is.

Getting out again is a problem, but Carver figures that with the girls still underwater there’s no-one to see but Barker, who doesn’t flinch but also doesn’t look. “Should you _not_ set a good example?” he says flatly, putting the finishing touches on a sloppy replica of the Gallows built out of damp sand.

“Like how?” Carver pulls his smalls up and then decides he can wait til he’s dry for trousers, dropping down onto the sand and stretching out. “It’s Pax-day. Whatever Pax wants, right?”

Barker makes a face. “You’ve never been so happy to see any of us knighted.”

It’s silly, so Carver pokes him. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

“Of course not.” But he looks sullen. “I suppose you’ll make Paxley your adjutant, now.”

“What? Not even.” That’s partly why he took Barker for his second in the first place, so Carver and Rue and Paxley could be together and Barker could take care of everything else. “I’m not planning on giving you up that easy, so don’t get any sodding ideas.”

It seems to do the trick, somehow, and Barker manages to look less of a stick-in-the-mud by the time they have company, even manages to laugh at a few of Carver’s jokes.

Still, he raised a good point. “Hey. Hugh. You’re coming over, right? Need you in my bloody squad.”

Hugh looks startled and then thoroughly pleased. “Yeah, all right. Not like I’m doing much, with Ser Alrik dead and gone.”

No-one’s terribly upset about Ser Alrik, honestly. Selwyn was downright gleeful about it when Carver spoke to him. But it’s still unsettling, that a knight of the Order (and such a senior knight) could go missing for a week and then show up just a half-chewed corpse in the sewers. It’s got everyone on edge, and Carver reminds himself that it’s a good idea to log one’s whereabouts so that if everything goes pear-shaped people know _why_.

Not that he’s planning on dying in the sewers. Or dying at all.

“Good. I’ll get you reassigned.” And then, when the girls have managed to drag a wrinkling Paxley out of the water-- “Margitte, do you want to come over and join us? Got a spot in my squad for you, if you like.”

Margitte pauses, and then continues to wring the sea out of her hair. “I regret … no, I shan’t. Apologies, Hawke. I have been offered a better position.”

“Oh, you’re not _doing_ that, are you?” Ruvena has struggled back into her shirt, with remarkably little loss of dignity, and she makes such a face at her friend that Carver isn’t surprised when Margitte goes a bit pink. Or pinker. Maybe she’s just sunburned.

“The Knight Commander asked. I could not say no.”

It makes no sense, until Ruvena explains it. “Margie’s going to be in Meredith’s special guard,” she says, not a little crossly. “Good for you, I guess. Bet she’ll promote you sooner for it. And I’m sure it won’t be _boring_.”

“Oh!” Paxley cuts Margitte a wobbly salute, half-dressed and definitely sunburned. “Congrats, then.” But he doesn’t sound as though he likes it, any better than Carver does.

When the sun nears the horizon they build a fire, and then the girls go off on their own for a chat, and Carver finds himself sprawled on the beach with the rest of his friends swigging wine out of the bottle and talking bullshit. It’s Hugh’s fault, he thinks, that the conversation takes a turn for the dirty, because Hugh can’t seem to get it into his head that Ruvena _does not want him_.

“She’ll come round,” he insists, slurring because they are all thoroughly drunk now, and Carver thinks they’ll be much the worse for it should they be set upon by bandits or apostates or slavers. Still, he’s not quite ready to go back, and the girls have vanished into the dusk. No need to hurry. “She’ll see what I’ve got, one day.”

Barker snorts. “ _No_. Not ever.”

“Reckon she’s seen enough by now,” Carver scoffs, and Hugh scowls at him but it only makes Carver chuckle. “Give over, won’t you? It’s embarrassing.”

“And you mooning after your bloody elf isn’t embarrassing? What?” Hugh turns on Paxley, who clearly just kicked him in the leg. “Come on, it _is_. Just an elf, you know. Doesn’t mean nothing, and so long ago. Get over it.”

“Hugh,” Paxley starts, but Barker doesn’t let him finish.

“From a man who doesn’t know when he’s been rejected.” Barker fixes Hugh with a baleful look. “Maybe if you weren’t such a brute someone might have you.”

“Hey, I get plenty!”

Paxley snorts, wiping his mouth and tossing Carver the bottle. “When you pay for it.”

“Nothing wrong with paying for it,” Hugh protests, but then he holds out a hand, and Carver surrenders the wine. “Least I’m not _pining_. 

“I’m not pining.” Carver frowns into their disbelief. “I’m bloody _not_. All right? Fenris can rot in the Void for all I care.”

It isn’t even slightly true. Still, it’s been a year. He _should_ be over it by now, right?

“You just need another bit of totty to set your mind straight,” Hugh says, kindly enough, but Carver doesn’t like it. “Come up to the Rose, some time. They’ve got elves. And blokes, for your sort. Some of 'em,” he adds, dropping his voice as though this is some kind of secret, “are almost as pretty as girls.”

Carver snorts. He’s been to the Rose with Isabela enough lately to know. “Speaking from experience, then?"

Hugh splutters. "Fuck that. I'm not going with a bloke. Not ever. Not for anything."

"I might." Paxley grins into Hugh’s horror. "If they were pretty."

"Have to be pretty sodding pretty," Hugh mutters, hunching when they stare at him. "Dunno that I ever saw a bloke pretty enough for that."

"How pretty would he have to be?" Paxley pushes himself up off the sand, suddenly contemplative. "If you would, I mean."

"I wouldn’t," Hugh says firmly. "Not ever."

"But if you had to." Paxley rests his chin in his hand. "Who, then?"

"Why would I have to? That makes no sense."

"But if you did?"

Hugh makes the worst face. "Fucking wouldn't."

"What about Cullen?" Paxley wriggles a little in the sand. "The Knight Captain's pretty, right?"

"No," Hugh scoffs. "Don't be daft. No-one would... Well. Hawke might. Right, Hawke?"

"Why d'you always ask me that?"

"'Coz you would, right?"

Carver tries to ignore him, but, well, the more he thinks about it the more... 

_Cullen, in his office, one hand hard on Carver's shoulder to shove him down to the floor, and then, fingers tight in Carver's hair to pull him in. Cock thick and salty in his mouth. And, fuck, maybe the Knight Captain would drag him up over the desk, bend him and, oh shit, just take him, all-of-a-sudden like, and, and…_

Carver swallows, takes a deep breath and lets it go. Merciful Andraste, he might be too drunk. But. "Might do. If it was on offer."

"I _fucking_ knew it!" Hugh crows, and Paxley kicks him again. “Ow! No, piss off. I knew it, I _knew_... Maker, Hawke, you’re a sodding pervert. That’s _disgusting_.”

“You’re out of line, Ser Hugh,” Barker warns him, but he glares at Carver too and Carver feels faintly ashamed of himself. “It is inappropriate to talk about the Knight Captain that way, and insubordinate to speak so to your Knight Corporal.”

“Oh, everything’s bloody inappropriate with you,” Hugh grumbles, but he pipes down, and in the sudden quiet Carver can’t help but feel that it _is_ inappropriate, and resolves not to think about the Knight Captain like that. Even if sometimes he’s not sure but he thinks, _Maybe_.

When the girls come back it’s late, and Margitte has started to shiver. Paxley offers her his shirt and she takes it, but still, she looks so fragile in the firelight with the thing slung about her shoulders that Carver decides it’s time to go home.

The others disagree.

“Come _on_ ,” Ruvena argues, grinning sloppily. “Night’s still young.”

“It’s getting up to curfew,” Carver argues back, but this is apparently not convincing enough. “Andraste’s _arse_ , none of you listen to me. I’m the bloody Corporal here, you know.”

But they stay, and the stars come out, and it’s … nice. There’s a cool breeze off the sea, and Carver leans back on his elbows, looking up at the inky sky. It’s almost-but-not-quite the same sky as the one he remembers from his childhood. This sky-- they have different names for constellations, here. The Bucket they call the Barrow, the Cat-and-Mouse is now the Ploughshare, and the Hound doesn’t seem to have a name of its own, is sort of glommed onto the Pikeman to form part of something Kirkwallers call the Great Wyvern, as opposed to the Little Wyvern which is, uh, Carver’s not sure where, actually. Somewhere near the horizon, he thinks.

“You look happy.” Ruvena props herself up on one arm to grin at him but, no, that’s not a grin, that’s a smile, a kind one, and it’s not something Carver’s used to from her so he tries to shrug it off. “Been a while since you looked like that. I’m glad.”

“I’m fine. I’ve been fine for ages.”

“Yeah. Right. You’ve been riding Werty and Keran into the ground because you’re _fine_.”

He hasn’t, at least he’s pretty sure he hasn’t. “Bugger _off_.”

“Buggery’s not my thing,” she says, but she’s still smiling, and it’s still weird. “‘Course, if it _were_ my thing, I’d probably be _doing_ it, instead of faffing about like a bloody Chantry Brother forever. Pretending I’m fine. Pretending _badly_.”

“I _am_ fine,” Carver protests and … he is. Sort of. On a day like today it’s easy to forget things, easy to gloss over bad memories and just exist. He opens his mouth to tell her this but she pinches him, dammit, and he smacks her hand because, well of course he does. 

“You will be. ‘Ventually. It’s all right, you know, if you’re not. You’re allowed to get busted up over unhappy love affairs.”

“Like you’d know,” he grumbles. “And, anyway, I’m not.”

She’s persistent though. “Got your heart broken, Hawke. Nothing wrong with that.”

“My heart’s not broken.” Though … “Fucking void, Rue, it’s been _a year_.” Almost to the day. “How pathetic would I be if I still cared?”

“Oh, only a bit. Or not at all. If your heart _was_ broken.” She leans down until he can smell the wine (and is that lyrium?) on her breath, and says quietly, “Maybe, though, it’s time you found someone else. For buggery or whatever. Just … get back in the saddle, sort of thing.”

“I don’t need a _horse_ ,” he tells her, and she chuckles, and pinches him again, and then Hugh is telling a filthy joke about Antivans which distracts her enough for him to try to put the whole thing out of his head.

Eventually, Margitte’s shivering must get to Paxley’s chivalrous side because he announces that he’s done, that they ought to go home, and (under protest) the others smother the fire and pack up their things. The walk back to Kirkwall is pretty merry, all the same, because they are none of them sober, and Carver’s pretty sure half the reason Margitte and Ruvena went off for their ‘chat’ was so they could share a phial of lyrium between them. There’s a brightness to their eyes that he recognises, but cannot fault them for because, well, they’re Templars and it’s _lyrium_. He doesn’t say anything about it, just signs everyone back into the Gallows and makes his way to his room and _collapses_ , and fuck, his bed has never felt so comfortable before.

It’s been a perfect day. The thought makes him cringe, because everyone knows that good things cannot last (though everyone also knows that Templars do not hold with superstition) and perhaps a perfect day is the reward for a suffering yet to come. He’s not sure. He’s lost count of his sufferings, so he can't tell if he's due. And, anyway, it's heretical. 

He feels better, with Paxley knighted. It had been such a close thing too, the Knight Captain holding the matter under consideration for a month, and then Carver had to write a report, and Barker helped, and in the end…

The horizon is yellow and purple and it shifts, awkward to look at, making it difficult to judge distances, but Carver is pretty sure it should be further away than it is. The air is dry and warm and tasteless, and he thinks: I know this place.

He’s in a field outside Lothering. He _can’t_ be in a field outside Lothering, and not this field, anyway, this one burned, didn’t it? Didn’t Lothering burn? There were Darkspawn and, and he can’t remember.

“Don’t trouble yourself. You get upset when you try too hard to make sense of it. Just let it go.”

He knows that voice, and he knows it too cannot be in a field outside Lothering. “Fenris.”

But it isn’t Fenris, not really. It moves wrong, and the legs, he sees, are bent back like a goat, and there are horns curling in its hair. Why does it bother with a half-disguise? They both know what it is. 

The only problem is-- “I’m not a mage. What are you doing here?”

“Visiting. Like always.” It’s strange, seeing Fenris’ face shaped around those expressions, those sharp teeth in his mouth, that unholy glow in his eyes. The hands end in talons, which is at least true to original. But the details are all wrong, or oddly right in a way that is wrong itself. Carver can’t explain, but it is all very … something. Distracting.

“I’m a Templar. You can’t. How did you find me?”

The demon bares its teeth in what is probably meant to be a smile. “You already know.” It’s much closer now, close enough to reach out a clawed hand, but Carver has his sword up because it is a _demon_ , his hands move without thinking.

“I don’t. Why can’t you just--” But he does. “Merrill. It’s because of Merrill, isn’t it?” He remembers, and remembers also that he forgets every time and has to remember again. “She opened up my head, and now … Wait, no. It was Danarius. There was a, a hook.” The demon’s eyes glitter, and it beckons to him. He doesn’t move. “Merrill took the hook out. She fixed it.” Didn’t she?

“She cracked you too far open,” the demon says, and it _sounds_ like Fenris, but it isn’t, and Carver can’t hold on to both ideas without feeling dizzy. “She signposted you. For us. Little glowing Templar, circling the Champion.”

“She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t … mean to.”

“Are you so sure? How many times has she been inside you? How many do you remember?”

Carver can’t think. “Once, when Danarius--” but that’s not right. “Twice. The first time was … I don’t remember but she said she had. And, and a third time. When I wasn’t sleeping at all.” He remembers that. Weeks of restless nights and then Merrill did _something_ for him and after that it was easy.

“Four times,” the demon tells him. “But you don’t know about the fourth. And you won’t remember this. Again.”

Four? What was the fourth? “Because this is the Fade, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And only mages remember the Fade.”

There, those teeth, so sharp. “Yes.”

“So I’m asleep. And you’re, what, tempting me?” It’s ridiculous. Demons only bother _mages_. Except, no, there was something, something about Blood Mages that he’s forgetting. Something important. He shakes his head. “Should’ve shown up as Isabela, then. I’m still talking to her. You might have got somewhere.”

The Demon laughs, and its laughter has a layered dissonance to it that sounds nothing like Fenris. “We’ve tried that. You always stab me.”

Always. “How many times have we done this?”

“We do this every night,” the Demon says, pushing Carver’s sword aside and stepping through his guard. Carver hesitates. He shouldn’t hesitate. _A Templar can’t afford to._

But he has to ask. “Why?”

“Because you’ll wear down, eventually,” and the Demon leans in, with a kiss that blots out the world.

When he wakes he remembers dreaming of Ferelden, and building a boat with Paxley and Barker, and Ruvena was a mermaid with perfect breasts and a glittering tail (and was, by extension, impossible to fuck), and there were dogs, tiny ones, that melted away like snowballs in the water, and something about bees. But no demons, no Fade. Just a weird, loose feeling that’s probably a hangover. That’s probably all it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: This chapter originally had some transphobia in it that I thought I'd written ok at the time but now I just cringe inside. So I edited it out. I'm not trying to hide it, really, it just makes me shudder so it had to go.


	4. Chapter 4

"It's extraordinary." Anders seems to have lost interest in his tea, too busy watching Merrill uncurl the Bean and ruffle his belly. "Developmentally, I mean. If I didn't know better I'd say he'd be, oh, six months? Small for it, but," he shakes his head. "I've never seen anything like it."

"There is something wrong with him?" Fenris feels... disquieted by this.

"Not wrong, really. Just unusual."

"He’s perfectly fine,” Merrill coos, tickling him until he giggles. “Aren’t you, da’len? You’re perfect. Anders is just being an old fuss.”

“I’m _not_. And I’m not old, I’m just … it doesn’t matter. All I meant was that it’s unusual. It’s not a bad thing. Just odd. I wouldn’t expect him to handle objects so well so soon. But, look,” and he puts a spoon into the Bean’s hand. The Bean holds it, waves it enthusiastically, and then puts it into his other hand to reach for Merrill’s hair. “See? See that? It’s bizarre.”

“Shemlen babies must be so slow,” Merrill says indulgently, and she cuts Anders a look Fenris can only interpret as smug. “Poor slow little things. In the days of Arlathan, elvhen babies took as long to grow as shemlen ones, but not anymore. There’s no time to lay about _growing_.”

Anders nods thoughtfully. “Which is _odd_ , given what your people think of us. Fast living, isn’t that it? Impatient. Do you think, maybe, it’s a side effect of elves losing their immortality? Sort of … speeding up childhood? All to scale?”

Merrill sniffs, smugness dissolving into disapproval. “I suppose you think this is all very interesting. Just another project. Poking at babies to see how they work.”

“And here I’d have thought a blood mage would understand,” Anders says drily, taking the spoon out of the baby’s mouth and replacing it with a tough ring of leather dipped in fruit mash. “I thought you wanted to know things, Merrill. Isn’t this something it might be good to know?”

“You can’t experiment on people just because you’re curious,” she says, and then stops, mouth thinning down into a hard line. “Not _babies,_ , anyway. Not beautiful elvhen babies with perfect tiny hands.”

“Andraste’s knickers, Merrill, I’m not going to _hurt_ him. It’s just interesting.” Anders arches an eyebrow at Fenris, and then seems to realize with whom he is trying to commiserate.

“Give him to _me_ ,” Fenris demands, suddenly angry with them both. “I will not have either of you corrupt him.”

Merrill frowns. “I’m _not_ , I swear. You can’t catch magic from _breathing_.”

“He might be a mage already,” Anders says, examining his fingernails and smirking in a way that seems calculated to infuriate. “I suppose we’ll find out, one way or another. Don’t get too attached, Fenris, you might have to lop off his head one day.”

It is only the truth, but Fenris hates it. “Do not taunt me, mage. If there are heads I must sever to be rid of magic, yours would be the first.”

“Good to know.” Anders gets up, smooths his robes, and shoulders his staff with the careless grace of familiarity. “I suppose I’ll take my head away somewhere it can’t offend you, then, while I still have it.”

“It offends me wherever it is,” Fenris argues, pointlessly, and Anders rolls his eyes.

“Of course it does.” Anders doesn’t wait for Merrill, just walks out and leaves her still holding the baby.

She doesn’t move. Instead she sits there, twisting in on herself.

“Well? Are you not after him?”

She blinks, shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. He’s going to the clinic and, anyway.” She shrugs, stroking the Bean’s hair. It is, Fenris knows, softer than anything else he can imagine. “Anders hates me.”

Fenris grunts. “As though I do not.”

“Ye-es. But it’s not personal. You’d hate me anyway, even if I were … well. I can’t help it with you. So, I’ll stay until Orana’s done with the laundry, if you don’t mind.”

Fenris does mind. But. Orana seems to like Merrill and it is … good for her. To have friends.

_”You can’t stay shut up in here forever,” Sebastian said, and Fenris argued that, yes, he could. “It’s no good, Fenris. Come to the Hanged Man for an evening. With your friends.”_

_“I have no friends.”_

_Sebastian raised both eyebrows at him, and then smiled a little. “Come now. Would you rank our friendship so worthless? And Isabela, for her faults, counts you as a friend.”_

_He was forced to concede the point. “Then, you two alone.”_

_“Orana, too, would think you so. And then there is Varric, and Hawke.”_

_Hawke. Who, he imagined, would never speak to him again. And nor should he. “After everything I have done to him, Carver would not stop to piss out the flames of my burning corpse. We are_ not _friends.”_ And I have no-one to blame but myself _._

_Sebastian’s expression shifted into something like pity. “I was referring to Garrett.”_

He shakes himself. _Enough._

Orana must have friends, he knows, but must one of them be the _witch_? “What good are you to her? Does she know the rancid things you do?”

“Orana doesn’t care about blood magic,” Merrill retorts, shifting the baby in her arms. “Or any sort of magic. I’ve been telling her the history of our people. It’s important.”

“Your people are not our people,” Fenris argues, and of course, this _again_. “Orana is not Dalish. I am not Dalish. The Bea-- baby is not Dalish. We have no need of you.”

“You are, you know. All of you.” She strokes invisible lines over the Bean's face, as though painting him. With marks, Fenris realises, like her own. "I didn't always understand. Elvhen from the shemlen settlements were always so different. Stupid, I thought. Ignorant as babes. But you're not, just different. You're still elvhen, and you've lost so much more than I have. I'm so sorry."

He doesn't know why this makes him angry but it always does. Her superiority. As though he had any choice in anything, as though it is his fault. As though she can give him anything he has lost. _I have lost more than you have ever had._

"The child does not need you. He will be Andrastian, and--"

"Oh!" Merrill looks so startled it is almost comical. "But... Fenris, you don't believe all that, do you? I thought... I heard you say to Sebastian, when he was lecturing about his silly old Maker."

“I--” He does not know. “I do not have to justify my reasons to _you_ ,” he growls, but Merrill does not take the hint, merely shifts the leather ring in the child’s mouth, wipes drool from its chin.

“It isn’t up to you, anyway. Orana asked me to. It’s my duty, you know, to all of you.” She gives him a somber look that does not suit her. “Even if you hate me.”

And that is that. If Orana asked, then no, Fenris has no say.

“Fe-enris,” Merrill says at last, ingratiatingly sweet. “Did you know Anders is saying the baby’s _yours_?”

 _That_. Anders’ obsession. Fenris has had enough of it and yet cannot bring himself to deny it. “He flung his accusations in my face.”

Merrill glances at him, hard and sharp. “But … Fenris, it’s not true.”

“Are you so sure?”

“Well, _yes_. Orana would have said if it were. Anyway. It’s not.” She frowns, fusses with a bit of swaddling. “But if you don’t say anything, eventually someone will tell Carver.”

Fenris has tried not to think about this, also. “Will you go running to him with this tale?” he demands, his throat rough with unhappiness.

“Oh, no! What harm has Carver ever done me that I should hurt him so?” She shakes her head. “Anyway. We’re almost friends again. Almost. He’s been so sad, you know. He keeps coming to visit, which is _nice_ , but he’s so sad all he does is mope about until Hawke can’t stand it anymore and riles him up somehow. Or Carver just pokes at his brother until they fight. I don’t know why they do it to each other. You can tell they _care_ but they can’t seem to say it.” She wraps the baby up neatly and then hands him over; Fenris cradles the little head by habit now, though the Bean barely needs it. “Did you really tell him it was all make-believe?”

It is intrusive. _She_ is intrusive. How he wishes she would leave. “And if I did it is no business of yours.”

“Why would you say it to him?” She refills the kettle and props it over the fire. It is so natural that he knows she has done this before, that she and Orana sit here, in _his_ kitchen, drinking tea and … gossiping. “You didn’t mean it, surely.”

“How would you _know_?”

She eyes him impassively, head tilted, birdlike, to one side. “I’ve seen. How you care for him. Or how you cared. Or how he _thought_ you cared. I just don’t understand. If you _cared_ for him, why would you lie to him?”

“But it is true!” And he does not want to share this with her but it comes out before he can steward it. “Humans and elves cannot end in anything but dust. It was all pretend, all … fantasies in the dark!”

He knows it. It must be true. Otherwise he has made a terrible mistake.

And perhaps he has now made another; he has startled the Bean, who jerks suddenly into a high, thin wail that makes Fenris’ teeth hurt. Fenris rocks him, shushing with his fingers in soothing strokes against a round belly. “ _All is well, little cub, do not cry…_ ”

Merrill hovers, clutching her hands to her waist. “Is that Tevinter-language? Are you teaching him to speak Tevinter?”

It is, and he has not intended it so. He ignores her. The Bean quiets, watching Fenris with wide thick-lashed eyes, and then he smiles, fingers reaching for Fenris’ face, catching his lip, the tiny nails sharp as talons.

“He likes the sound of your voice,” Merrill says softly. Fenris glares at her but she doesn’t seem to see it. “He’s listening to you. Say something.”

It is awkward to think of a thing to say, but he tries. “ _Fear not the witch. I will be your shield,_ ” he says, and he cannot keep himself from smirking at that. The Bean makes a bright noise, touching Fenris’ mouth again, and it is unbearable.

“See? He lo-oves you.”

“He is barely three months old, he knows nothing,” Fenris snaps, but the baby’s smile wavers and this, this is what he hates about this, a tiny person with _needs_ that he is unable to fulfill. The need to be safe, warm, dry, fed, unalarmed – it is all too much. Fenris does not _care_.

“As though _you_ know everything. You’re wrong, anyway.” Merrill checks the kettle; Fenris feels the sudden yank of magic against his lyrium and it takes him a heartbeat to realize that she has used it to finish heating the water. _Why, then, bother to put it on the fire at all?_ “A human and an elf can be more than dust.”

“Is that so?” Fenris sneers, lets himself sneer because she is a fool if she believes it. “Where is your proof? Do not tell me it is so amongst the Dalish. _Your_ people tolerate half-bloods and cross-breeds no more than humans do.”

She hesitates. “No, not … but it can happen. It can.”

“Name for me once when it has.”

If he gave any care for her feelings he would hate the way her expression crumples, the downturn of her mouth, the draw of her brow, and would hate himself for causing it. As it is he tries to feel nothing. “It _can_ , and it _will_.”

“You mean it will work between you and _your_ Hawke?”

 _There._ The lyrium pulse tells him she is _reaching_ for it, and he would rise to her gladly if not for … but no, there is the Bean, and Fenris cannot risk it. 

“Perhaps it will,” he says, shifting the child into the crook of his off-arm. “I have not heard of it. But, once upon a time I had not heard of a human mage slaying an Arishok of the Qun in single combat, yet it came to pass.”

She does not move but the lyrium subsides, and Fenris lets himself relax. “It _did_ , didn’t it?”

 _Though it killed them both_ , Fenris does not say. 

They drink the tea, and when Orana comes back and Fenris has surrendered her child to her, Merrill leaves. Maybe he has won. He can’t be sure.

She visits again and again, but they do not speak of Hawke, or Carver, or whether an elf can hope for more than dust in the arms of a human. Fenris thinks that they both know, in any case. It is her fault for being too stubborn to admit it.

* * *

Sebastian smiles, lays a hand on Fenris’ arm, and says, “A child is a blessing. You are truly blessed, Orana."

Orana makes obeisance, but it is … she flutters a little, and Fenris does not know what to think of it. “Thank-you, Brother Sebastian. You have always been so kind.”

“No kinder than the Maker wills it.” Sebastian says and this, of all things, Fenris dislikes about him. Always it is the _Maker_ , the same one who burned Fenris out of his sight (and, if he hears Merrill aright, burned the Dales with an Exalted March, and left the elves to _rot_ ). Never will Sebastian stand for himself, always hiding behind his Maker.

But, he has been so kind.

“He should … do you, the Chantry, want of him?” Fenris does not know how to ask this, but there is _something_. “Before he is old enough to choose. Should he … I would be glad to think he should go to the Maker’s side.” Little helpless thing.

Sebastian squeezes him. “When he is of a twelvemonth, then bring him. I’ll see him vouched for.”

But that is not-- “And between now and then? What of him _now_?”

“For elves we wait a twelvemonth.” Sebastian’s mouth turns down. “So many die, in the first few.”

“And you let them _fall_?” Fenris cannot fathom it, except … no, he does. “They are only elves. Is that it? Or only so small?” And the Chantry, such scant shelter that it is with such a heavy collar.

“It is the numbers and the cost. I do not agree with it, neither the practice of swearing children nor the withholding of it from the elves,” Sebastian tells him, shaking his head. “The Maker would not turn away a child. It seems unnecessary to try to make certain of it. But, if you wish, for your boy I could--”

“For him only if he is _mine_?” Fenris flattens his hand against the blanket, the lump of a small foot beneath his palm. He can feel Orana in the room like a stone against his sole, a burr in his clothes. “It is not my decision. Orana? Please.”

She curtsies. “Serrah?”

“Would you see your son blessed by the Chantry now, or later, or not at all?

She does not hesitate. “Now, if it may be done.”

Fenris rubs the covers between thumb and forefinger. “Then, Sebastian. It should be done. Tell me the cost, I will match it.”

“There is no need,” Sebastian assures him but Fenris makes a fist, holds it up between them and the priest subsides, watching him warily.

“Then I will make a donation.” _We do not need your charity._

It looks for a moment as though Sebastian might argue, but he does not, simply bows his head solemnly. “The Maker bless you for your generosity.”

* * *

The Bean is blessed in the Chantry, along with a dozen elves all of a twelvemonth: Catulus Orana of Kirkwall. The Bean is the youngest of them all, and Fenris sees the elven parents watching, sees their envy, their anger. But it is not directed at Orana, and that at least makes him … not ‘happy’, but perhaps ‘not angry’.

He does not know why; he does not _care_ why.

Sebastian tells Isabela and Isabela shows up with a bottle of something herbal and potent, and insists that they ‘wet the baby’s head’. Neither Fenris nor Orana know what this means, but Isabela makes it clear that it doesn’t really involve the baby at all; she just talks Orana into a glass of her green poison and then challenges Fenris to match her shot for shot until they are both giddy and silly and useless.

She does not ask, and Fenris waits for her to do so until he cannot stand it anymore. “You have not interrogated me,” he says, sitting on the floor of the kitchen with his back against the wall and Isabela warm and inviting against his arm. Orana has taken the Bean to bed. It is late. Isabela does not appear to be leaving just yet, though. “You are the only one who has not.”

“About what?” She is tossing a knife from hand to hand; she is clumsy now, and he winces every time she lifts the thing because she is _going to cut her fingers_ and he does not want that to happen.

“Whether or not I am the father.”

Isabela fumbles her knife, and she _chuckles_ , as though she had not just narrowly escaped impaling her own thigh, as though it would have been _amusing_. “Well, that’s because I don’t care.” He looks at her, and she grins at him. “What? Should I care? If it were important Orana and you would have said. So it can’t be. None of my business, anyway.”

“As though you mind your own business,” he growls, and she pokes him ungently with the pommel of her dagger.

“If you two were _tumbling_ , then I’d pry, never you mind. But it doesn’t look as though you are. And I don’t care whose baby it is. I don’t care for babies.”

“Nor do I,” he says, but she laughs, cocking her head to look up at him. 

“Oh, no. I can see that.”

“I do _not_.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s just your little Catully-bean that has you tangled up in knots. So, it doesn’t matter to me if he’s your spawn. He might as well be. I’ll keep an eye on him, for you.”

Fenris does not know how to respond; it is _Isabela_ , though, who does not easily take offense. Still, if she is offering this--

"Thank-you. You are... a good friend."

She smiles, a crooked, beautiful thing. "I'm really not," she tells him, and he knows too that she is a liar.


	5. Chapter 5

Carver doesn’t bother knocking on the outside door; at this time of morning it is always unlocked, as much for him as for Cullen’s Tranquil manservant, he suspects. He does knock on the inside door leading from Cullen’s office to Cullen’s bedroom, waits the few moments it takes to be called, and goes in. “Good morning, ser.”

“Good morning to you, Hawke.” The Knight Captain waves him into a seat at the tiny dining table under the window, uncovers the breakfast tray, and starts dishing out frycakes and eggs. “How do you fare, today?”

“Pretty good, ser. Uh, and you?”

Cullen is blurry in the mornings in ways Carver has come to recognize, soft eyed and weak around the mouth, as though he hasn’t quite tightened the mask of ‘Captain’ yet. He smells good in the mornings, too, warm and spicy, and he lingers over breakfast, chatting lazily as he sips his tea, stringing together conversation about pretty much anything.

“The gulls, as usual, woke me early,” he says, and he sighs, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Perhaps I ought to have Isaak deal with them, but,” and he smiles, and it is almost shy, “I do not have the heart. Having watched them nest and lay their eggs, it is too cruel to displace them now. I will simply have to suffer for my softheartedness.”

This, from a man who has condemned mages to Tranquility. Carver isn’t sure what to make of it. “It’s just a birdnest, ser. Not like it’s an orphanage.”

“But they chose _my gutter_ to nest in. They must feel safe there. I would not dissuade them. How could I?” His smile is soft and gentle and too bloody handsome, this early in the morning.

Carver clears his throat. “As you say, ser.”

They finish their breakfast, and then Cullen pours Carver another cup of tea, adds a little honey to it, and he rests his hands on the edge of the table, favouring Carver with rather more scrutiny than he’s sure he likes. Whatever he sees must satisfy him, though, because he nods, and says, “I have a task for you, Hawke.”

Carver nods. “Knight Captain.”

Cullen leans back in his chair, head turning aside and Carver thinks, _Maker, he’s handsome as an Orlesian icon._ “I want you to retrieve someone for me. A recruit of the Order, loose in Kirkwall without leave.”

Carver frowns. “Are we missing one, ser?” Barker would have told him, surely.

“Not one of ours.” Cullen’s mouth twitches as though he might smile. “But one of ours nevertheless. He’s taken lodging in the Hanged Man, and spends much of his time in its common room, the worse for drink. He’s _Fereldan_ ,” and there’s a particular emphasis on the word that makes Carver perk up all of a sudden. “I want him brought in. Gently, but not too gently.”

Carver nods. “Sounds easy enough, ser.”

“He is no _raw_ recruit,” Cullen cautions, catching Carver’s eye and holding it. “He was a Grey Warden, once. A hero.”

That … doesn’t sound right. “Ser? But doesn’t that mean he still is? ‘Once a Warden,’ isn’t it?”

“So they say. But in this case, he walked away from them. And, it follows logically, back toward us. If he has broken his word with them then he is ours again. Do you disagree?”

“No, ser.” It makes sense enough. “So, who am I looking for, then? Ten foot tall? Lightning bolts shooting out the eyes?”

Cullen shakes his head, but he’s _smiling_. “His name is Alistair. He’s of a height with you, and burly with it, fair-haired and … handsome, I’m told. Ruined by drink, but still you should be _on guard_ , my knight.”

 _His_. Carver feels his spine straighten, shoulders pulling back all by themselves. “ _Ser_. I’ll bring him back.”

“I have every faith that you will.” He hesitates, and Carver _knows_ this look, knows that Cullen is considering whether or not to say more on the subject. “Be careful, Hawke. I have reason to believe that certain parties may want him silenced.”

‘Silenced’ means ‘dead’, Carver decides, and he nods briskly. “I’ll take a full squad. In case of trouble.”

“Good.” Cullen empties his cup, sighs heavily, and pushes himself to his feet. “And good hunting,” he says, which is enough dismissal that Carver stands, salutes him, and goes looking for Barker.

Barker, unsurprisingly, already knows about the ex-Grey-Warden who is also an even-more-ex-Templar-recruit. “He’s seen in the Hanged Man near every day,” Barker says, frowning over one of his bloody tablets. “Afternoon to evening. Shall we try him tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Full squad. He used to be a Grey Warden.”

Barker looks confused. “I didn’t think anyone ever stopped being a Grey Warden.”

“It happens,” Carver says, thinking of Anders. “So. Full squad. But we’re to be _gentle_ with him, which I guess means no blood. Swords sheathed, all right? They’re just for show. Unless it all goes south.”

When they find him, Carver’s first thought is, _What a sodding mess_ , because the Fereldan is slumped over a tumbler and a bottle of something that looks toxic, and then, _Oh shit_ , because the glare he sends Carver’s way when he’s interrupted is _venomous_.

“I _might_ be Alistair,” probably-Alistair grumbles. “It might be none of your business.”

Carver tries again, propping his hands on his hips and glaring back. “Knight Captain Cullen wants a word with you.”

“Oooh, does he? Just let me get my party dress on. I’ll be _right_ there.”

Maker’s fucking _balls_. “You can come with us on your feet or off them. I don’t give a shit in the Void either way.”

The ex-warden laughs, he fucking _laughs_ , and he plants a hand on the table, pushing himself up. “Goody. Neither do I.”

Carver’s half expecting the punch to the face, but what he’s not expecting is the heavy concussion of a Smite along with it. He takes the full brunt of both, rocks back into someone that is probably Barker, and then everything descends into chaos.

Later, in the Knight Captain’s office, Carver thinks it could have been worse. Not by much, though.

Cullen keeps _looking_ at him, eyes snapping up to the bruise Carver _knows_ is coming up under his eye, and every time that happens Carver can see the dark anger in his Knight Captain intensify. Maker. He’s fucked it up, this time. Cullen’s _angry_ with him. That’s never good. That’s so far from good it isn’t even funny.

Alistair, for his sins, is worse off at least. He must be bruised from hip to collar, and there’s blood on his face, but he manages to look broodily furious all the same, dangerous in a way Carver doesn’t like, not when he’s so close to the Knight Captain.

“How good of you to see me,” Cullen says, and he’s icy, too fucking cold, and Carver hates it.

Alistair slouches, clutching the bit of rag he’s been using to dab at his lip in one hand. “You asked so nicely. How could I refuse?”

Carver wants to kick him. But. He doesn’t. He just waits, sure as hell that Cullen is going to _ream_ him once the interview is over, and he’s not afraid of that but he is … resigned. Definitely not looking forward to it.

Cullen clears his throat, fixing Alistair with a look Carver never wants to be on the receiving end of, and says, “Welcome back to the Order, Recruit.”

The Fereldan chuckles, low and bitter, and Carver wonders how drunk he is right now, and also whether this is the worst idea Cullen’s ever had. Alistair didn’t want to come, clearly doesn’t want to stay, and short of locking him in a dungeon Carver has no idea what they’re going to do with him now. Still. 

“I’m not a recruit,” Alistair mutters. “I was conscripted. You know that cuts any ties that--”

“And you left the Grey Wardens.” Cullen makes a tight gesture with one hand. “A broken troth reinstates prior troths you have made, surely.”

“It’s not broken,” Alistair insists. “Just … bent. A little. I’m still a Warden.”

“Then you are in Kirkwall on Warden business?” Cullen gives him a frank look and Alistair, wonder of wonders, shrivels from it. “As I thought. Therefore, you are bound to us, as surely as any recruit of the Order.”

“Fuck your Order,” Alistair says hotly, hands bunching up into knots that, Carver knows, are _dangerous_ and he feels himself shift into a ready stance just in case Alistair decides to show Cullen the weight of his fists.

Cullen shakes his head. “Recruit.”

Alistair’s glare should give Cullen blisters. “I remember you, you know. Yeah, I remember you. The Circle Tower, back home? Solona and I--” and Carver jerks, suddenly listening hard because … he means Solona Amell, Carver’s cousin, a Grey Warden and the fucking _Hero of Ferelden_ , and suddenly a bunch of things Carver has puzzled over start to come together.

But Cullen stands up, hands flat on his desk. “You saved my life. So, I wish to do you the same favour.”

“Because I was in so much _danger_ , in a tavern,” Alistair scoffs. “Oh, please, Maker protect me from Corff’s terrible _booze_.”

“There is at least one person who would be glad to see you dead.” Cullen takes a deep breath. “The Queen of Ferelden, perhaps.”

“Oh, Anora’s not going to _do_ anything. I'm less threat to her than mice.”

“Are you not? A loose end, wandering about, with rebellion looming in his shadow.”

Alistair stares for a moment, and then he laughs, wild and genuine. “Me? I’m not starting any rebellions. She’s safe enough.” His tone turns bitter. “I’m just a drunk mercenary, after all. What could she fear from _me_?”

“Rebellion, as I have said.” Cullen straightens, his expression turning thoughtful. “Her reign is precarious. It would be easy for a disgruntled Arl to use you as a banner in his or her campaign against the Queen. Especially given your connection to the Hero.”

Alistair looks furious, then stricken, then sullen. “Solona doesn’t give a, a plugged copper for me.” He shakes his head, folding his arms across his chest. “She made that very clear.”

Carver has no idea what any of this means but … Solona, again. They know her. They _both_ do. He wants to ask about that but he doesn’t, just stands still as he can, ready for this _Warden_ to act up, ready for Cullen’s orders regardless.

And this Warden is _that_ Warden, the one who (Carver has heard) followed the Hero almost to the end and then disappeared. Something about the traitor Loghain, Carver thinks, but he doesn’t know, and it’s all stories, anyway, stories he’s heard out of Varric’s mouth alongside stories about Garrett that are only half-true at best.

He looks Alistair over and he thinks, _I was expecting more_. Ten feet tall, with lightning in his eyes. That’s what a Warden is, surely. Though Anders is … actually, Anders is exactly that, if ‘lightning’ means ‘a fucking Fade Spirit that’s probably a demon’.

“The Order will assume your debts,” Cullen says, cool as can be. Alistair scowls and opens his mouth but Cullen does not let him start. “Your debts, for which you have given your word. Or would you let them default? Is that what the word of a Theirin is worth?”

Carver’s not _stupid_. He's Ferelden, and he knows--

Alistair shudders as though he’s been cursed. “You’d have to ask a Theirin.”

\-- what ‘Theirin’ means.

Holy _fuck_.

“You owe us three years, Alistair. That is the usual term, is it not? For Chantry orphans taken into the Order? After that you are free to do as you please.”

Alistair looks like he’s going to argue but then, shockingly, he subsides, scowling at the rag knotted in his fist. “I don’t suppose I have much of a choice.”

“I suppose we shall see.” Cullen glances up at Carver and nods. “Knight Corporal, if you please, have Recruit Alistair escorted to the barracks, and return to me.”

Carver nods. “Yes, ser.”

He hands Alistair over to Barker and Ruvena, tells them to set Alistair up with the other recruits, and goes back in, closing the door behind him.

This is it. He sets his feet, stands as straight as he can, and says, “Ser.”

Cullen is looking at him. Of course he is. Carver tries to stand up straighter but it’s no use. Whatever happens next he deserves it, and standing up straight never helped him before.

But Cullen comes out from behind his desk, cups a hand firmly under Carver’s jaw, and tilts his head, examining the bruise coming up under Carver’s eye and frowning. “I warned you to be careful, my knight.”

The joints of Cullen’s gauntlet hurt his skin and Carver doesn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry I let you down, ser.”

“You have not. You have fulfilled your duty, as I expected, but … I am sorry that it caused you injury.” He lets go of Carver’s face, and then his hand just hovers for a moment before he tucks it behind his back. “I fear I should have been more specific in my warnings.”

“It’s just a shiner,” Carver argues, because it’s nothing, not anything, really. “You should see the other bloke.” He means it as a joke, and it’s gratifying to see Cullen’s mouth quirk into a rueful smile.

“Indeed. Well.” He leans back against his desk, gauntleted hands furled around the edge of it, and he sighs for reasons Carver can only guess. “I hope you do not harbour too much ill will toward our guest, for I wish to entrust him into your care. I will need you to take very _good_ care of him, Hawke. He needs tending, and I would like to make a Templar of him, if it is possible.”

“Ser?” Carver can’t help the face he makes. “Is that a good idea? He doesn’t want to be here.”

“It is difficult when a recruit forsakes the small vows we ask of recruits. You have not before seen how it is managed, I think, which is good in this case as I do not believe FitzTheirin would respond well to such harsh measures. But you, perhaps, can treat him with compassion, as well as the necessary discipline. I trust it will be so.”

Carver takes a deep breath, “I’ll do my best, ser. Always.”

“I know,” and Cullen smiles, all the way to his eyes. “I have every faith.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've realised that I've started to take this fic way too seriously. It used to be easy to write; I used to pound the fucker out at a ridiculous rate and ... well, you guys seemed to like it back then, regardless, so I'm thinking that now? I'm staring at it too much, too worried about whether or not it works etc. And then I agonise over chapters and won't post them 'til I've read over and edited them to death and it draws out horribly.
> 
> So, I'm going back to writing the way that makes me happy. Hopefully this will mean I post more often, and maybe the quality will drop but maybe it won't. We'll see.
> 
> I hope you still enjoy it. That's really the point here, so, yeah. Your thoughts? Always appreciated. Private thoughts can be sent to tanukiham@gmail.com, and I always reply to those. Eventually ^_^


	6. Chapter 6

Ruvena catches him at breakfast, and she’s grinning like a maniac. "Your stray puppy didn't show up to muster, Ferelden."

Carver growls and shoves himself up off the bench. "I knew he'd bloody run. Fucking void!"

"He hasn't gone anywhere," and Ruvena's still bloody grinning. "Come and see."

When they find Alistair, still snoring under his blanket, Carver’s torn between amusement and annoyance. Better not to laugh, he thinks, so he kicks the side of the cot pretty hard. “All right, morning glory! Get the fuck up!”

Alistair makes a noise, curling deeper into his blanket. “Piss off.”

It’s … funny. Almost. Stubborn bloody bastard. But also, Carver knows he can’t let him get away with it. The words ‘bad for discipline’ hover in the back of his head, and he sighs. “All right, Rue. All yours.”

“My pleasure, ser.” She snaps her fingers at Wertold who hands her a bucket, and she winks at Carver before upending the thing over the bed.

Alistair is awake in an instant, roaring with dismay, and Carver winces because Ruvena had got one of the apprentices to ice the water for her, and she probably aimed for Alistair’s junk on purpose. Still, watching the ex-warden flop around like a landed fish is pretty entertaining.

“ _Getchyour useless bleeding carcass out of bed, you pathetic sack of nug shit!!_ ” and Carver’s called her a harpy before but now she’s some kind of terrifying ogre. “I’m counting to three and if you’re not out of that bed by then I'll have your skin for boot-leather!”

Alistair gapes at her, and then he scrambles to his feet, sopping wet and shuddering. “You … you _witch!_ ”

“That’s ‘ser’ to you, recruit.” She props her hands on her hips, and the grin on her face is _nasty_. “ ‘Ser Knight’ or ‘Ser Ruvena’ or just ‘Ser’ or ‘please, ser, thank-you, ser, may I have a- _bloody_ -nother’. Do you understand?”

Alistair’s face and neck are angrily red, and Carver wonders if he’s going to have knock him down and sit on him. “Yes, I sodding understand,” he mutters, but Ruvena rolls her eyes.

“Werty?”

Wertold smacks Alistair across the back of his head with the open palm of his gauntlet. The palm’s only leather, but the metal joints of the fingers make an almighty racket, and Alistair scowls at him. “Ow,” he says pointedly.

“ _Do_ you understand, recruit? Do you _speak_ the common tongue? Or, you're Fereldan, should I say it again in high Orlesian?”

That gets her a (deserved) glare, and again Carver wonders if there’ll be some sitting-on in his near future. But Alistair just balls his hands up by his thighs, glowering balefully. “I understand, ser knight.”

“Good. Now. Get your kit on. Come on, _come on!_ ” she hollers, smacking her fists together. “I haven’t got all bleeding day!”

Maker. She’s a force of bloody _nature_.

Once she’s bullied Alistair into his robes and (shitty) recruit armor she chews him out for the haphazard state of his buckles, and makes him take it all off and start over _again_ ; Carver leans back against a bunk and just watches. Alistair is hating it, he can tell. And he’s hung-over. It’s early, Carver thinks, for a man used to drinking himself to sleep at night. And he hasn’t had any breakfast.

But he’s up now and he’s dressed, and Ruvena sighs. “That’ll have to do. Next time you miss morning muster, you’ll be exercising in your smalls. Miss morning muster twice, and you’ll be exercising in your skin. We clear?”

“Yes, ser.” Alistair’s glower is pretty funny, really. Carver feels … not sorry for him, exactly. He’s a wreck. But he’s also a Fereldan, and a Grey Warden, and a … well, he really should be a hero. _Saved the Knight Captain’s life. Good enough for me._ And a Theirin, though he doesn’t seem to want to be. Carver gets that. That at least makes sense.

So. Carver clears his throat. “You’re on probation, recruit. You’re confined to the Gallows until I reckon I can trust you. Do what you’re told and I might take you out for walkies. But until then, you’ll be mornings in the yard, and afternoons in the yard, and then you report to me.”

Alistair looks unimpressed. “You. Who hit me in the face.” Ruvena nods to Wertold who thwacks him across the back of the head again and he makes a frustrated noise. “ _Ser._ ”

“Warned you first. Least I didn’t smite you.” Carver frowns. “Where’d you learn that, anyway?”

Alistair sneers at him. “Really? You’re a Templar, _ser_ , I would have thought you’d know.”

Ruvena glances at Carver and he can practically feel her begging to slap the bloke around for his sass. Carver shakes his head. “We don’t teach recruits how to smite, not until you’re knighted. What’s your lyrium dose?”

“I don’t have one. Ser. Never touched the stuff.”

Carver squints at him. “Yeah … right. Have it your way, then.” He’ll get Ruvena to keep an eye on the Fereldan for withdrawal, see how long he holds out. Maybe he’s got some squirrelled away to neck on the sly. “Be good, or Ser Ruvena really will skin you for boots.”

She laughs, and doesn't really stop laughing all the way to the yard. 

The Fereldan's out of condition, Carver can tell. He's good enough, for a merchant guard or a bouncer, or even Meeran's drunken lot, but Garrett wouldn't have wasted time on him. He doesn't seem to care, and Carver supposes that it’s because he doesn't. 

Well. Can't have that. 

“Work him hard,” he tells Ruvena, who’s enjoying this far too much, “but try not to break him. I’ve got to check on the apprentice quarters. See you for lunch?”

She grins, cutting him a jaunty salute. “Right you are, Ferelden.”

At lunch, when she drops onto the bench across from him at the officers’ table, she’s still grinning. Or grinning again, maybe. Probably. “All right, Rue?”

“Better than,” and she leans over to make a play for his bread but he tugs his lunch out of reach. It only makes her grin widen. “Your puppy’s a lot of stubborn fun. I put him on his back a couple of times, and he _scowled_ at me. Little shit.”

“He’s not trying,” Carver says, sopping up broth with his defended bread. “He doesn’t want to be here.”

“Yeah, that’s obvious. But Cullen wants him, right? So we’ll keep him.” She arches an eyebrow at him. “Right?”

“Course we bloody will. Whatever the Knight Captain wants.”

“Hah. Yeah.” She opens her mouth, and then very clearly changes her mind about whatever she was planning to say next. “Anyway. The little bugger’s _not_ trying. So what are you going to do about it?”

Carver has no idea. “Beat the living shit out of him until he does?”

She snorts, stuffing her mouth with soggy bread and suspect vegetables. “Don’t know that it would help, honestly.” She chews, swallows, and makes a face. “You’d be better off _making_ him care.”

“How the fuck do I do that?”

She shrugs, gesturing with her ale-ration. “Well, I guess that’s what makes you a Knight Corporal. You have to come up with something, and I just have to do whatever you bloody well tell me.”

Carver scowls. “Yeah, I guess. Maker’s _ballsack_ , I don’t know.”

“You’ll work it out.” and she grins, and there’s something greenish stuck in her teeth. “Hey, you busy next free day?”

It’s two days away. He isn’t. But Ruvena looks like she’s planning something and it makes him wary. “Might be. Might not. Why?”

“My brothers are coming to visit. Not all of them, just Konnie and Gar and Levi. Thought I might take ‘em out and show ‘em Kirkwall. The good bits. You in?”

It doesn’t sound too bad. “You never came to dinner with my mother,” he argues anyway, and she rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, _no_. But … come on, Ferelden. Have a little fun.”

He does have fun. He’s not, not _boring_. Is he? Is that what he is now? “All right,” he says, and she looks so pleased it’s a little embarrassing. “Who else is going?”

“Ellen and Tash. And Barks. What?” She pokes him in the arm. “ _Barker’s_ coming. You’re such good bloody friends now I figured you’d be fine with that.”

“I’m not not fine with it. Just. Not Pax?”

She shrugs. “I asked, he said he’s busy. Visiting his mother, as always.” She glances around and then ducks her head, voice low and private-as-it-can-be, here in the mess. “I reckon he’s either keeping us away from her ‘cos we’re embarrassing, or he’s got a lady somewhere he doesn’t want us to know about.” She raises her eyebrows, inviting comment. “Maybe he’s _romancing_.”

“No sodding way. Who’d have him?”

“Who’d have _you_?” She smirks, and kicks him under the table. “Pax is all right. Despite the hairy lip. As if you’ve never thought about it.”

He makes a face. “Not ever.”

“Lies, Fereden, all lies.” She scoops up the last of her slop, chokes it down, and stands up, a bowl in one hand and her mug in the other. “Don’t forget. Next free day you’re _mine_.” And she goes.

She’s … kind of amazing.

When Alistair limps into his office at the end of the day, Carver takes one look at him and offers him a seat. He wavers, but then he takes it, ginger as if he’s bruised all over, and Carver feels bit sorry for him. Only a bit, though. “Good first day?”

Alistair scowls. Maker, Ruvena’s right, his little-shit-scowl is hilarious. “Oh, I don’t know, ser. Could have been worse. There could have been _bees_. Or Darkspawn. They’re a bit worse than bees, really.”

Fuck, Carver likes him. He can’t help it. He really shouldn’t. “Reckon you’ll be out of bed on time tomorrow?”

Alistair shudders, actually _shudders_. It’s great. “Well, I don’t fancy doing all that again in my smalls.”

It takes Carver a moment, but then he remembers, and when he does he tries very hard not to laugh. Can’t help his grin, though. “Rue’s a monster.”

“She’s certainly something.” Alistair grimaces. “Ser.”

Carver isn’t sure how to go on, but he needs to do something or … well, he’ll fail, and Cullen will be _actually mad at him_ , instead of just potentially mad at him, and, yeah. no. He wants to avoid that. “Why’d you sign up, if you don’t want to be a Templar?”

“I didn’t have a choice.” Alistair shrugs, leaning back in his chair and wincing. “Chantry orphan, after all. Ser.”

Carver frowns. “But you’re not. Not really.” He takes a breath, not sure how else to say this. “You’re a Theirin.”

Alistair shrugs again, but his face has gone all hard, as if this, of all the things, is his sore spot. "You might be surprised by how much that doesn't matter.”

Huh. Carver nods. “Okay.” He gets that, he thinks. “So you’re … just Alistair, then.” It’s not a question, not really. Alistair eyeballs him for a moment before turning his head aside, and the full weight of his bitterness shows in his face, making Carver feel like an intruder.

“Yes, ser.”

He does look like a Theirin. Maybe. Carver can’t be sure, but he saw the King at Ostagar, and Alistair looks … like him. More real, maybe. Less … precious. Older, but they’re all older now, aren’t they?

 _He looks like my King_ , Carver thinks, and he wonders if that is what Cullen sees, if that is what Garrett would see if he looked at him. _My king, who I deserted at Ostagar_.

“Well, I dunno what I’m s’posed to do with you. Usually recruits _wanna_ be knighted.”

Alistair snorts, glances up. “So, this ought to be fun for _both_ of us, ser?”

 _Oh, you sassy little…_ Carver grins, gesturing for Alistair to fuck the fuck off. “Yeah, I guess so.”


	7. Chapter 7

You’re restless, Fenris says, and his voice is muted for a moment but then--

The room is dim, rosy in the firelight, and he’s so warm against Carver’s side, blinking glossy eyes at him like something out of a fantasy. Everything behind him is murky, indistinct, but it’s private and safe here and there’s blankets and _Fenris_ , and that’s all Carver needs.

“Can you not sleep?”

“I’m--” _am I?_ “--I don’t know.”

“Tell me what troubles you.”

Fenris’ outlines fade into shadows but the lyrium catches the light. It’s sort of hypnotic. Soothing. “I’m fine.”

“You are not. You worry about your prince.”

“He’s not a prince. Like Sebastian’s not a prince.”

“They both could be. As could you.”

Carver scoffs, “Champion’s brother. Lord sodding _Amell’s_ little brother, but that’s the best I could ever do. Not so much, that.”

“You could be Knight Captain, when your Captain is Commander of the Gallows. And one day, Commander yourself. If you wished it, one day Viscount.” Fenris comes up, brushes Carver’s cheek with his own, and smiles lazily. “Or, if you prefer, the Knight Divine.”

Carver shakes his head, it’s not… “You’re thinking of someone else. I’m just Carver.”

“You don’t have to be. If you want.”

Does he? _Don’t I?_

“What do you want? Is it the prince?” His smile is full of sharp teeth. “You can have him, if you want.”

It sounds … Carver ignores it. “I want him to trust me.”

“Then ask him about _her_.” They both know who he means by ‘her’.

“Maybe. He’s just … he’s a Theirin. And a warden. I wanted him to be taller.”

“Height, is it? You are taller than your _brother_. And stronger. You could destroy him, if you wanted.”

“I don’t want _that_ ,” and Carver’s sick of questions, so he tugs at Fenris’ arm. “Come here?”

Fenris leans down, kisses his neck, and it’s nice but also... “Tell me what you want,” Fenris says, and Carver wishes he’d stop. “ _Tell_ me.”

“Maker, you know what I want.”

“I want you to say it.”

“ _Fen_ ris. Do I have to?” Carver can hear the whine in his voice. “Can’t you just give it to me?”

Fenris laughs. It’s muddy, somehow. “I’ll give you everything you want, if you ask for it.”

“I want what you’ve got for me,” Carver tells him, and it’s true; whatever Fenris has he’ll take. “Come _on_ , Fenris. Just … can you do it?”

“And you’ll let me? Whatever I want?”

Carver feels loose and scattered, bits of himself spinning off into the shadows. “Yeah. Always.”

“And you’ll do anything I ask? Anything I want?”

Carver hesitates. “Almost.”

Fenris’ brow draws down. His nails score the length of Carver’s chest, and Carver can’t help the breath he sucks in at the sting. “I need more than that.”

“It’s all I have.”

As soon as he says it he knows, with a jerk, that everything is wrong. 

Fenris writhes away from him; Carver’s on his feet, and he doesn’t know how but his armour curls around him like a second skin and fuck, Maker _fuck_ , it wasn’t _real_.

“This is the Fade,” he gasps, the wind a tempest in his ears. “You’re not Fenris.” How he _wishes_. “None of this is real.”

The demon laughs. Again, it is too bright, too brittle. Carver should have _known_. “Nothing ever is.”

“Don’t you _touch_ me,” he growls, and the demon cracks, purple fire running down the lines of the-Fenris-he-is-not, marking out his brands and making them glow.

“You like it when I touch you. Such _noise_.”

“Not when I know you’re a demon.”

“Sometimes you pretend to forget.”

No. “Do I have to recite the Chant? Will that keep you away?”

“Why do you keep trying?”

Carver reaches for a verse. “Maker, my enemies are abundant, many are those who rise up against me,” and the demon jerks away in disgust.

“You are a fool to hide behind that.”

“--sustains me, I shall not fear the legion--”

The demon’s face twists, and it _strikes_.

Andraste’s mercy, he always forgets how much it hurts. 

By the time he’s eating his breakfast he’s forgotten all of it. There’s a dull ache in his crotch, though, a restless tension in his shoulders and he can’t stop thinking about Things He Shouldn’t. Like how Ruvena bobbles under her washroom tunic, or the freckles on the back of Paxley’s neck. Or Barker and his Maker-damned mouth, good fucking _fuck_ \-- he keeps tapping a stylus against his lip and frowning and Carver can’t quite concentrate.

“Are you listening?”

“No,” Carver admits, trying not to sound defensive. “Something about the Fereldan?”

“They’re calling him ‘the Warden’.” Barker’s frown is dire. “That’s better than FitzTheirin, I suppose.”

“Don’t tell anyone I told you about that,” Carver warns him, and Barker gives him a withering look.

“As if I would. The recruits would go bonkers. They’ll find out eventually, though. Maker, Hawke, you have to talk to him. Say something. Make it inspirational.”

“Because I’m so good at that,” Carver growls, but Barker just shrugs, marking something off on his tablet.

“You’re not terrible. Look at Paxley.”

That’s not even… “Pax did all that himself. I just argued for him, is all.”

“If you say so. Speaking of, he’s doing pretty good in his lessons. Decent smite on him. Nothing like yours, but he might be as good as me one day.”

“Good for Pax.”

Barker makes a face. “It means he’ll be assigned Harrowing duty soon.”

That’s … not good. “Can you hold it off?”

“No. It’s standard. As soon as he demonstrates sufficient ability, we have to. You _know_ why.”

“Yeah but … I mean, Harrowing is awful.”

“ _Yes_. And one of the duties of a Templar.” Barker fixes him with a stern look. “We knighted him. That means he’s ready, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose. Shit, I don’t know.” Carver scrubs his hands through his hair and wishes he were just a junior knight again, everything made _sense_ back then, or at least the things that didn’t weren’t his damn problem.

Barker lets him stew for a few moments and then clears his throat. “You’ll be seeing FitzTheirin this afternoon. Maybe you should think about what you’re going to say.”

Carver groans. “Fine! Sodding _fine_ , I’ll … urgh, I’ll say something. It won’t help, though.”

“It had better,” Barker insists, and then he dumps a wad of papers on Carver’s desk with instructions to go through them before they’re submitted to the Knight Captain.

He leaves Carver to it and Carver reads over the documents with a thorough sense of dissatisfaction. Hugh’s requesting extra Chantry duty and less night patrols (typical), Ruvena has a run-down of recruits she wants permission to run ragged in the yard (Alistair’s on the list, no surprise), there’s the monthly report on what Garrett’s been up to (nothing much, just messing around with his stupid mine). It’s all so boring.

Some days he just wants to hit something with a sword. Some days he thinks he’d be better off still dogging his brother’s footsteps around Kirkwall, smashing slaver rings and routing rogue Qunari. And some days he wonders what might have happened if they’d never left Ferelden.

Nothing good, probably.

(Some days he wonders what would have happened if he’d run when Fenris asked, if he’d just _gone_ , and maybe they’d be okay, and maybe they wouldn’t, but they’d still be together, maybe, maybe…)

By the time Alistair knocks on his door, Carver’s grouchy and he knows it. Alistair still manages to look grouchier, saluting crisply but slouching into the chair when Carver invites him to sit.

“What’s eating you today?”

“Oh, nothing, ser. Just missing my freedom. And I’d just about murder someone for a drink.”

That, again. “You get an ale ration. Better than the bilgewater they serve in the Hanged Man, anyway.”

“Ah, but it was bilgewater with _character_.” Alistair sighs dramatically, actually managing to look as though he’s reminiscing. Carver’s not fooled, mostly because he’s drunk enough of Corff’s brew to know that it takes at least three mugs to kill the rotten taste of the first mug, and also because Alistair always bloody does this shit.

How the void is he supposed to go about this? Alistair’s made it clear he doesn’t think much of any of them, though he seems to reserve a particularly strong dislike for Ruvena, which only makes sense. With Carver, however, he’s just dismissive. Obedient, sure, now that he’s toeing the line, but he tends to ignore anything Carver says that isn’t a direct order. And Carver knows he can’t simply order Alistair to give a damn, that won’t _work_.

“Is it only the Gallows you hate, or Kirkwall too?” Carver asks, stalling for time.

Alistair’s mouth twists into something close to a sneer. “No, Kirkwall’s _lovely_. All those charming statues with the weeping and so on. Makes a bloke feel right at home.”

“Do you miss Ferelden?” Carver frowns, leaning his chin in one palm. “ _I_ do. I miss bacon.” Because sometimes the Knight Captain will lament the cost of bacon here and also how Kirkwall doesn’t seem to know what to do with it, cutting it up and stewing it in things instead of frying the stuff in thick slices with eggs and mushrooms and … fuck, now Carver’s hungry. “I miss mutton. And apples. And the bread here’s rubbish.”

“Ugh, the bread is _terrible_.” Alistair makes a face; he’s still stupidly handsome and Carver thinks, _Oh, void, don’t even._ Then Alistair brightens up, suddenly cheerful again, which only makes him more handsome and Carver just … no. “The cheese is all right, though.”

Carver blinks. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty good, actually. They import goat cheese and sheep cheese, did you know?”

“Oh?” For once Alistair looks interested, leaning in a little, making eye-contact. “I didn’t know you could make cheese from sheep.”

“From any kind of milk,” Carver tells him, and he remembers a conversation that he tries desperately not to think too much about but-- “They could probably make mabari cheese, if they wanted.”

“Bleeargh!” It’s an expressive sound, and the face Alistair pulls is the same. “I don’t know that I’m Fereldan enough to eat that.”

“Me neither.” Carver grins, and Alistair shakes his head, and this is … better. Okay, even.

_Maybe I should ask him about ‘her’._

It’s not as though he has any better ideas, so he clears his throat. “So. You know-- I mean, you _knew_ the Hero of Ferelden. Isn’t that right?”

Immediately Alistair shuts down, glowering at the hands tangled in his lap. “Solona. Yeah. I knew her.”

Not good. “I … sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Alistair looks up, face impressively blank. “What do you want to know?”

Carver’s not sure. “I wondered what she’s like. She, Maker, I don’t,” and he takes a breath, not sure how to put it. “She’s my cousin. They say. My mother’s an Amell and she, your Solona I mean, she’s an Amell too, yeah? ”

“Huh. That’s _new_.” Alistair gives him a measuring look, and it’s the same thing everyone does when they find out, or when they find out about Garrett. “I suppose you want to hear about how marvellous she is. What a glorious credit to the family name, etcetera etcetera.”

“Not really.” He should say it. He should, but he doesn’t want to. “I mean … my brother. He’s,” _oh for Andraste’s sake, just_ say _it_ , “Garrett’s the Champion of Kirkwall. It’s bullshit, actually, how ‘marvellous’ everyone thinks Garrett is. I guess … I never had a cousin before. I wanted to know what she’s _like_.”

Alistair looks at him for a long, tense moment, and then he nods. “Right. Well. She’s … marvellous.”

“For shit’s sake--”

“No, I mean it. She really is.” Alistair looks away, hands knotting up like roots. “She’s the bravest, cleverest, most astonishing person I’ve ever met. Also the most ruthless. Or least ruthful, if … I don’t even know if that’s a word. But she is. She does what has to be done, even when it’s horrible. She always made up her mind about things and then … then she did them. Or does, I suppose. I can’t imagine she’s changed at all. Not even an Archdemon could manage that.”

He sounds wistful. Carver doesn’t know what to do with that. He nods, though, because it all sounds sort of familiar. “My brother’s the same. But he always … he has to make a joke of it, every time. Maker, how he jokes, when everything’s gone to shit.”

“That sounds like her.” Alistair smiles, and again it’s wistful and Carver can’t-- “If it’s serious, she jokes about it. And if it’s _not_ , she just,” and he makes a vague gesture with one hand, “rolls her eyes at it. I always hated that.”

“I hate that about Garrett, too.” 

There is a long silence. Alistair sighs, eventually. “I miss her. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.” There is another silence, into which Carver does not feel as though he can speak, and then -- “You look like her, you know?”

Carver can’t help it; he glances up, and he isn’t sure what colour his face is but it feels awkwardly hot. “I look like a girl?” But he knows, because people always told him the same thing about Bethany.

“Not all over. Just … in the eyes.” Alistair squeezes his shut, head tipping forward. “You’re _like_ her, too. Maker, that woman. I’d have given up a kingdom for her, if she’d wanted. If I’d had one.”

“But you deserted her instead,” Carver says, and he regrets it at once because, damnit, who _says_ things like that? What man -- _what_ deserter _, Carver, you_ fucking _know_ \-- would say that to someone?

“For something that was _nothing_ ,” Alistair agrees. He puts his face in his hand, and Carver looks away. “Maker, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Some things are more important,” Carver says, throwing the bloke a bone, but Alistair shakes his head, looks up, and there’s something in his face that makes Carver feel--

“No. Nothing’s more important than your duty.”

“And what’s your duty now?”

“Hah. I have no idea. I think, oh, whatever it was I really did abandon it.” His eyes scrunch up, mouth like a wound. “I thought she was wrong. I think … maybe I was the one who was wrong.”

“You’re a Grey Warden,” Carver says slowly, and he _respects_ the Wardens, because they, well, they really do stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Whatever Alistair left behind, he must have _meant_ it when he left. “Whatever it takes, right? You must have been right.”

“I don’t know.” He sits up straight, and then he sags, all the effort gone out of him. “She did slay the Archdemon. She saved Ferelden and I let her do it by herself. After everything.” He smiles, and it’s too sad and too rueful. “‘Everything’ was quite a lot.”

Carver can’t bear his smile. “You can’t go back,” he says slowly, and maybe … maybe this isn’t just for Alistair. “There’s just forwards, you know? Just this, what’s in front of you. You just have to make the best of it.” 

“That’s all I ever do.” He looks so bleak. “I’m no good for anything else. Anything at all, really. If you’re expecting some kind of hero,” he adds, sounding sure of this, if nothing else, “you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“I don’t want a hero. I just want you to try.”

Somehow, it seems, this might have been the right thing to say. Alistair nods, and there’s something sincere in his face when he says, “All right.” Then he grins, and _Maker_ it’s so … “All right, _ser_.”

Carver can’t help grinning back at him. “Yeah, all right, Recruit. See you tomorrow.”

* * *

When Paxley is assigned to a Harrowing, Knight Lieutenant Nottely calls Carver over, tells him, and asks, “Do you want to oversee it or shall I?”

“I’ll do it,” Carver says, because it’s _Pax_ , and he wants to be there.

“You can’t warn him.” The Knight Lieutenant looks stern. “It doesn’t have any weight if you do.”

“I won’t,” Carver promises. “I’ll do it right.”

So, when the schedule goes up and Paxley sees his name against ‘Fourth bell: Harrowing’ Carver ducks in behind him to smack him on the shoulder. “All right, Pax? Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

“All right. Should be fine.” Paxley grins at him, but it’s a weak grin, and Carver remembers how nervous Paxley was to face his vigil. 

“It _will_.” Though … Harrowing is awful.

When the time comes, Carver collects Paxley from the mess and walks him up to the Harrowing chamber.

“Just keep it together,” he says, trying his best to be encouraging. “It might come to nothing. But if it doesn’t … don’t worry. You’ll do fine. And we’ll go for drinks, after. My shout.”

Paxley laughs, cocks his head, and gives Carver a very merry look. “Plying me with drinks? You’re making it sound _worse_. How bad can it be?”

Carver doesn’t say, ‘pretty sodding bad,’ because he _can’t_ , but some of it must show in his face. Paxley frowns, opens his mouth to say something but they are _there_ now, and he backs down in front of the knights outside the chamber door.

The apprentice is someone they both know; his name is Willard, and Paxley has been friendly with him in the past (and Carver _knows_ this is why Paxley was chosen to Harrow him, because it will _matter_ , and they’re cruel like that, cruel as the Maker). The mages put the boy under and Carver tells Paxley what he has to do.

Paxley stares at him. “But … what, an actual demon?”

“Yeah. So, be ready.”

“But he could come out of it an abomination!”

That’s the whole point. “And if he does, you have to _be ready_.”

“To do _what_?”

Carver takes a deep breath. “What a Templar has to do, with an abomination.”

Paxley glances down at the boy in a Fade-sleep, and he flinches. “I have to kill him, don’t I?”

“If he’s corrupted.”

It has never sounded worse.

Paxley puts his hands behind his back and he waits, but Carver can feel the weight of his betrayal, and he couldn’t have told Paxley before but it seems too bloody harsh to put him up to this without warning. Though. They don’t warn the apprentices, so...

“Does it always take this long?”

Carver shakes his head. “Not always. Sometimes it’s quick.”

“But if the sand runs out I have to kill him anyway, don’t I?”

Carver nods. “Yeah.” Fuck.

Paxley’s mouth twists, and his moustache isn’t even slightly silly right now, not even wrenched as it is into disbelief. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s the way it is.”

They wait, and finally, with plenty of sand left in the glass, Willard stirs. Carver lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, but then Paxley glances up for reassurance and Carver has to nod, has to encourage him to _look_. 

Paxley looks -- he flinches, and Carver sees it.

“Well, Pax?”

Paxley blinks, shakes his head. “I … sorry, I thought for a moment …”

Shit. “Thought what?”

“Thought I saw something but … I didn’t, it was nothing.” Paxley looks back over his shoulder, and in the candlelight he’s ghastly. 

Willard is trying to sit up. Carver can’t help glancing at him. Paxley follows his gaze, and there, that _flinch_ again. “What did you see?”

“Nothing. Nothing, really.”

“Are you sure?” _Come on, Pax, you have to be sure._

Paxley nods, meeting Carver’s eye and holding it. “He’s fine.”

Willard seems dizzy, and one of the Enchanters comes forward. “Sers Knight? Has the boy passed his Harrowing, or...?” 

There’s so much in that ‘or’. 

Carver looks to Paxley, who shakes himself and says, “He’s _fine_ ,” again. 

So.

“Yes,” Carver tells the Enchanter, who immediately goes to Willard and offers him some water. 

Paxley is quiet as Carver takes him out, ominously silent, and Carver drags him outside, into a garden, and then he waits while Paxley props himself up against a wall, watches his face as Paxley swallows, grimaces, and shakes his head. “I didn’t know.”

He doesn’t have to explain; Carver knows. “Neither did I.”

“It’s not fair.”

“No.” What else can he say?

Paxley takes a breath, stands up straight, and his eyes catch Carver’s, shiny and wounded, and Carver hates that because Paxley should never, not _ever_. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“We joked about it, but I never thought...”

Carver grabs Paxley’s arm, high up, and he can’t squeeze him through his armour but he wants Paxley to _know_. “You did good.”

“What if I didn’t?”

“But you _did_.”

“No, but,” and Paxley makes a fist out of his gauntlet, clangs it against his thigh and the wrench of his head looks painful. “I think he’s all right, but what if … I could be wrong.”

“You _can’t_.” Carver doesn’t know how else to put it, and he wishes the Knight Captain were there because he, at least, would know how to say this. “You just can’t. You can’t let an abomination walk free in the Gallows.”

“But, I can’t kill someone, not if … if they’ve done nothing wrong. Maker, Hawke.” He twists away, something awful clear in his face. “That’s … it’s no good.”

“You don’t have to. Just … if there’s a demon, if they _are_ corrupted, you have to _do_ it. Come on, Pax, you’re a sodding Templar, right?” He tries, spreads his hands, and what else can he _do_? “It’s our duty.”

“I suppose.”

He sounds so wretched, and Carver can’t bear it. “Hey. Hey! Pax, c’mon. You did it right. Right?”

“I guess so.” He shakes his head again. “It’s a bad business.”

“Yeah, it fucking is. So, let’s go get a drink. Rue’s up for it, I bet.” He tries for a grin but it feels weird on his face. “Let’s get shit-faced. All right?”

Paxley nods, and they fetch Ruvena, and then, for once, it’s just the three of them, the way it’s meant to be, draining cups in the Hanged Man and laughing too hard at things that aren’t really all that funny just because they have to.

Later Ruvena’s in his lap but her hands are tangled in Paxley’s hair, and Carver has an arm around both of them and, urgh, they’re so drunk. Rue laughs, smoothing her hands down Paxley’s face and Paxley leans into Carver’s shoulder, smothering a chuckle into Carver’s shirt.

“For we are jolly good fellows,” Ruvena says with far too much sobriety for someone who’s sculled so much rotten ale. “Jolly good, right Pax?”

“Mmmmph.” He makes such a face. “I think … I _might_ be going to sick up.”

“Better out than in!” Ruvena chortles, but then she squawks as Carver dumps her into a chair. “Fucking _what_ , Ferelden?”

“Pax’s gunna sick up,” he says by way of explanation, because Pax is _green_ with it, all of a sudden, and Carver only barely gets him out into the alley out back in time.

Paxley throws up a lot, but it’s mostly liquid, and Carver rubs the back of his neck which is, he thinks, a good thing to do. It’s what the Knight Captain did for him, that time he -- urgh, don’t even _think_ about it.

“It’ll rot your gut,” Carver says, “drinking this crap.”

“W-euugh … why do you do it, then?”

Carver gives Paxley his handkerchief, offers him the rest of a mug of ale to wash out his mouth. “Dunno. Better than the alternative.”

Paxley wipes his mouth, and has a good go at standing up. “What’s that?”

“Beating yourself up about it.” Carver struggles to his feet. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“No, I mean it.”

Paxley wipes his mouth again, grimaces at the pocket-square, and then folds it very carefully before tucking it in a pocket. “I’m absolutely fine. Let’s go home.”

They find Ruvena chatting up the Captain of the City Guard again. Carver can’t peel her away without him; the bloke insists on walking them down to the docks. Ruvena lets him, so Carver lets him, and it’s dull and annoying until they’re on the ferry and she’s waving over the side and giggling.

“Like him then, do you?”

“He’s all right,” she says, leaving off her waving to lean up against Carver’s shoulder. “Don’t you like him?”

“Do _you_?”

She sniffs, rubs at her face. “Not _that_ much. He’s ‘all right’, I said.”

“He’s a captain. Good, that?”

“Not a _Knight_ Captain, though.” He can’t tell if she’s teasing or not but she pokes him between the ribs with an unreasonably pointy finger. “I’d rather someone with a knighthood.”

“I thought you didn’t,” he says, and then, “It’s fraternisation, you know it.”

“Not if it’s just a tumble,” she scoffs. “No one _cares_ about that.”

“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know!”

“I’m just saying.” 

They manhandle Paxley into his bunk; his room-mate gives them a filthy look but says nothing. Sometimes it’s good, being Knight Corporal.

“He’ll be okay,” Ruvena says, sauntering down the corridor to the women’s quarters in a far-more-inebriated-than-she’s-letting-on sort of way. “First Harrowing is always shit.”

“Yeah, probably. You all right?”

She snorts. “I’m just _peachy_.” She pauses before opening the door to the room she shares with Margitte, leaning on the jamb and squinting up at him. “You?”

“Yeah, good. Tomorrow morning’ll be a trial, I bloody know.”

“Oh yeah? Breakfast with Cullen, plotting with Barks, chatting up runaway Fereldan wardens. Must be _tough_.”

“It’s not that easy,” he argues, but her smirk is wry and unconvinced. “I actually _do_ things, you know.”

“If you say so. Don’t let ‘things’ soften you up, Shoulders.”

He can’t help himself. “Didn’t know you wanted me _hard_.”

“Oooh, what a lot of things you don’t know,” and she grins before pressing a finger to her lips for quiet and opening her door.

It doesn’t mean anything, he’s pretty sure. Still, he thinks about it, in his room as he strips down to his smalls. He gets a little tangled in his trousers -- he’s not _that_ drunk, it’s just he’s suddenly so tired. It’s an effort to hang his clothes up instead of leaving them on the floor. And then, when he finally crawls into it, his bed’s so _good_ , Maker, he could stay in it forever.

So he’s not that drunk, but the booze makes his head spin a little in the dark, swirling his thoughts around too much for him to latch onto anything. Tomorrow … there’s a schedule for tomorrow, there’s always a bloody schedule. Something about the recruits … and yeah, breakfast with the Knight Captain. _Bloody Rue._ Why does she always have to be _right_ about everything? She’s just like--

“Tired?” Fenris leans up against his shoulder and Carver sighs, tucking his foot around Fenris’ ankle. “You work so hard.”

“Me? Nah. I’ve worked harder.” He eases back into Fenris’ arms and just lies there, because it’s too comfortable to move. “Planting. Harvest. When we could get the work.”

“You deserve to be rewarded for it. Something grand.”

“I don’t need _grand_. I’ve got everything I want,” and he finds Fenris’ thigh under the covers to give him a squeeze just in case it isn’t clear.

He can feel Fenris’ mouth against his ear. “You don’t, you know. There’s so much more you could have.”

“Like what?” He rolls over to look up. Maker, how he misses those eyes, which makes no sense at all because Fenris is _right here_.

Fenris smiles, leaning down. “Let me tell you.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abuse of power, dub-con, harassment ... Sadly just another day in the Gallows.

Selwyn gets hold of Carver’s arm one cool autumn afternoon, leaning heavily on him and smiling. “Oh, my dear, _dear_ Knight Corporal. How tall and handsome you look today. Even … is that soap in your hair?” He squints, shakes his head. “Anyway. I wanted to ask you a _favour_. In return for … well, I’m not sure, but we’ll think of something.”

“I told you, Selwyn,” Carver says gruffly, keeping his voice low. There’s no-one about; the hallway is deserted, but still, it’s the Gallows, and there’s always someone _somewhere_. “I’m not trading favours.”

“You always trade when you want something from _me,_ ” Selwyn argues, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah, well, that’s ‘cos you always want bribing. Just … ask me. I don’t need anything from you, but I’ll do what I can if you need it.”

“Because we’re ‘friends’?” He sounds so uncertain. Carver supposes he isn’t used to being friends with Templars.

“No. I mean, we are, but that’s not why. It’s my duty. You _know_ that.”

Selwyn makes a face. “I suppose I forget that actually means something to you.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I need a favour. Or, maybe … maybe it’s more that I have a suggestion for you.” Selwyn licks his lips, glancing up from under his thick, dark lashes, and it makes him look nervous and shy. “Are you on evening patrols?”

“Not this roster. Next roster, yeah. Why?”

“Can you swap out? Whatever you lot call it, I don’t know. You could be on evening patrols tonight. Or … tomorrow, maybe. Or the day after. Or you needn’t be on patrols, I suppose you could just … if you wanted to, you could just be looking.”

“I could. What am I looking for?”

Selwyn frowns, glancing down. “There’s something … if you _were_ looking, maybe third floor north, there might be something that you should see.”

Third floor north is teaching rooms, empty at night, so Carver can’t guess what he should be looking for. “Like what?”

“Obviously I can’t _tell_ you.” He gives Carver a frustrated look. “Just come, will you? Please?”

It sounds … Carver can’t be sure if it sounds dangerous or just mysterious. “Do I need to bring a squad?” Because getting _everyone’s_ roster changed would be a nightmare.

“Oh, no. Maybe just Ser Paxley or, or someone.”

“All right. Tonight, or tomorrow?”

“Both. If you please. It might not be tonight, but then … it might.”

He’s being cryptic and Carver doesn’t like it, but he nods. “All right. If you say it’s important.”

“ _I_ think it is. And I think you will too, once you see. Don’t knock,” he adds, and his smile isn’t quite right.

It worries at Carver all afternoon, that smile, hovers relentless in the back of his mind, so when the Knight Captain extends an invitation to dine with him Carver says he’s busy with something. Cullen does not question him, just smiles and says, “Ah, very well. Another time, then.”

When he mentions the whole thing to Barker, Barker insists on coming with him. “Whatever it is, you’re supposed to bring a witness. Obviously.”

“Is it obvious?”

Barker rolls his eyes. “ _Yes_. Paxley’s too green for that. His word wouldn’t hold much weight.”

“And yours will?”

“Knighted before you, don’t forget. _And_ my father was a Knight Lieutenant.”

“Does that really matter?”

Barker gives him a Look. “ _Yes_. Maker’s mercy, Ferelden, how do you manage at all? Don’t you _know_ how it matters? Have you forgotten why they promoted you? Not for your wits, that much is certain.”

“It’s just so _stupid_ ,” Carver moans, leaning his chair back on two legs and scowling. “Who _cares_ who my mother’s bloody father was? _My_ father was a dirt-poor apostate who traded in simples and _pumpkins_ , for fuck’s sake! We helped the neighbors with harvest every year because they paid in grain and we needed it to last the sodding winter! D’you know how long I went without shoes? Maker, we wrapped our feet in sackcloth because Mother had kittens if we didn’t, as if we’d be mistaken for elves, as if that mattered.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out all in a rush, scrubbing the leather palm of his gauntlet over his face. “I just … you earn that, don’t you? Respect and all. Don’t you have to earn it?”

Barker is giving him such a funny look. “I believe the idea is that your ancestors _did_ earn it.”

“So fucking what? Then I guess _Alistair_ should be Commander of the Gallows.”

“He could be, if he wanted it. Look at Cullen.”

Carver can’t help the face his face must be making. “You’re not gunna tell me Cullen’s another bastard prince of Ferelden.” Because. That, Cullen says, is what Alistair is, even if he hates it. Carver can’t fault him for that, anyway.

“His grandfather’s a Bann. Didn’t you know?” Carver hadn’t known, and the knowledge is … all wrong. “Oh come _on_ , Ferelden! Cullen came here in disgrace, just a plain knight, and Meredith dragged him up the ranks like a catch of fish. Didn’t you wonder why?”

“That’s … fuck, I dunno what that is.” 

“A fact,” Barker says, short and sharp. “Now. I’ll meet you in your rooms at the curfew bell, all right?”

Carver supposes it will have to be.

Alistair comes in that afternoon, grumbles about nothing important, and deflects Carver’s questions about hazing. It’s annoying because Carver _knows_ ; Ruvena _told_ him how the other recruits are giving Alistair a hard time, annoyed, no doubt, that Alistair makes it so obvious how much he’d rather be anywhere but here while the rest of them are working so hard to be knighted.

Still, no matter the reason, hazing is bad, and Carver remembers when it was _him_ getting nasty surprises in his boots and his clothes soaked in the bath rooms, and he remembers how that came to a head. Maker, he dreads dragging Alistair up out of a lyrium funk, but also … he doesn’t think Alistair is gullible enough to drink down a phial of something given to him by someone who hates him, and the memory makes Carver cringe at his own stupidity.

But he also remembers how he would never have let on to anyone about what was being done to him, not even the Knight Captain, not even if he _asked_ , so he tries to tell Alistair that he should just bleeding say, that he needn’t name any names (that’s never good) and Carver will try to do something, anything about it.

Alistair gives him a crooked smile. “Oh, I’ll be sure to, ser.”

At least the ‘ser’ is rolling off his tongue naturally now, instead of being forced out like a man off a gangplank. Thank the Maker for small mercies, Carver supposes, but he resolves to talk to Wertold and Keran about keeping an eye on Alistair, maybe sticking up for him if need be. Except, that won’t help, will it? Keran and Wertold should be doing it already, they should _know_ better, and Carver wonders whether chewing them out for letting one of their own, one of _his recruits_ , founder all alone would be better or worse.

Fuck. Fuck it all, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to mess it up, but he’s going to, he’s pretty sure. Maybe he’s no good at this. _Not good for much except swinging a sword around,_ he thinks, and it’s so true it _bites_.

He runs a surprise inspection on the recruit barracks, ignores Alistair’s amused looks, and ends up having to reprimand five of his recruits for slovenliness, three of them for contraband, and one for giggling too much in the presence of an officer. Urgh. 

“Do better,” he tells them all, and walks out on their ragged chorus of ‘yes, ser’s, even more annoyed with them than he was walking in.

Dinner is millet and beans in some kind of salty gravy, and Carver wishes _so hard_ for beef or lamb or poultry or, Maker, even one of those oily deep-sea fish that’s almost like meat and, yeah, he _gets_ why Cullen waxes on so about Fereldan bacon. Or blood pudding. Or even a decent dish of kidneys, or tripe with onions. Lamb’s tails. _Liver_. And fucking potatoes. Good, solid, hearty food, not this subsistence trash the kitchens serve up for the troops. 

He knows he could get better food if he took it from the officers’ kitchen. He won’t, though. He’d never be able to look Ruvena in the eye if he did. Meals with the Knight Captain don’t count, he figures, but the rest of the time? Whatever the others are eating is good enough, it has to be, otherwise … he couldn’t justify anything else.

“Stones, then?” Paxley asks, and they play a game, messy and noisy at one of the knights’ tables, with Barker and Ruvena offering Carver advice that Paxley tries to wave off. “They’re not helping,” Paxley says, grinning beneath his moustache, and Carver tries to ignore them and loses anyway, so badly that Barker throws up his hands and declares him a total utter dunce. But it’s nice, still, losing at Stones in a circle of his friends, even if some of them are mad at him for ignoring them.

“I’m not cut out for games,” Carver says, and Ruvena cackles, stabbing him in the ribs with her fingertips.

“Not cut out for _much_ , Shoulders!”

Paxley grins. “You’re getting better. No, Rue, shut up. He’s better now. You used to be so _useless_.” Paxley clears the board for another round. “You’re not entirely useless, anymore.”

“Oh, well, thanks.” Paxley’s such a glorious git.

“You’re _welcome,_ ser.” Paxley offers up a handful of stones in handicap. “Play again?”

Carver doesn’t lose so badly the second time, and Ruvena goes off with Ellen and Tash but Barker stays, gritting his teeth against all of Carver’s bad plays until Carver thinks he might break something. “What?” Carver bunts him with one shoulder, and Barker shoves him back. “What’d I do wrong now?”

“You _never_ listen to me!” Barker’s mouth wrenches, hilariously indignant, and Paxley chortles at him until they have to finish up.

There’s time for a cup of tea before curfew, and then Carver’s back out, still in his armour, and he’s yawning by now but Barker gives him such a look that he tries to swallow it, blinking exhaustion away as best he can. The corridors are deserted for the most part, but they catch a recruit (who gets a penance for her trouble) and a couple of trysting mages (who Carver lets off with a warning because they’re both so startled and _embarassed_ ).

Carver’s grumpy as fuck by the time they make it up to the third floor, gives each of the empty rooms a quick once-over, and shoves open any doors that are closed. He’s still not sure what he’s looking for, but Barker just shrugs, reaches for another handle and gives the door a push, and--

At first Carver's not sure what he's seeing, just Templar plate and a confusion of robes and then he _sees_. That's Selwyn up against the wall. The knight has one gauntleted hand around Selwyn’s throat, the other disappearing under Selwyn's skirts. 

Selwyn looks up, and Carver knows this is exactly how it seems. "The fuck are you _doing_?"

The knight jerks away; it's Ser Pereval and he looks surprised and annoyed but not terrified and that, if anything, is what makes Carver snap. 

He's across the room before Pereval can react, has a gauntlet of his own around the fucker's throat and slams him into the wall. "You rotten sack of nug guts," he growls, and the effort it takes not to squeeze until he's clutching bloody bone is unbearable. "Go on. Tell me this isn't what it fucking looks like!"

Pereval is choking; Carver lets up a little, but not a lot. "Mercy, ser!"

"You fucking _what?_ "

“It’s just a bit of fun, ser! Nothing to worry about.”

“Just a _bit of fun_?” Carver leans on him and he splutters. “Yeah? Why don’t we have a bit of bloody fun right now, with my fist and your _face_?”

“Hawke.” It’s Barker. “Knight _Corporal_!”

“ _What._ ”

“If you choke him to death you’ll have to explain it to the Knight Commander.”

It’s a _point_. Carver thinks it’s a stupid point, but he lets go, steps off, and balls his hands into fists that shake and shake. “So I guess instead we explain it to the Knight _Captain_.”

Pereval looks appalled. “Cullen doesn’t care about fraternization.”

“ _That_ wasn’t fraternization. Fraternisation’s when you get caught snogging a junior knight in a storage cupboard. What the _bleeding fuck_ do you think _that_ was? Don’t you _dare_ look at him,” he snaps, when Pereval’s eyes cut sideways to where Selwyn is standing, very still and quiet, robes pulled tight in front of him. “You don’t get to look at him ever again, do you bloody hear me?”

Now Pereval’s sweating. Good. Let him bloody sweat. “I’m sorry!” he protests. “I didn’t know he was _yours_.”

Rage comes up in Carver’s throat so hard he thinks he might vomit, and he has his forearm up under Pereval’s chin before he can think. If he puts on enough pressure he could crush the shitstain’s windpipe like an overripe pear, he knows it, and it’s so very tempting. “They’re _all_ mine. Every bloody one of them. So keep your taint-rotten mitts to yourself or I’ll cut the damn things off you.”

“Knight Corporal,” Barker warns, so Carver eases off, letting Pereval up.

“You’re suspended, Pereval. Report to the duty lieutenant in the morning for a work detail -- you can tell Rochard why and if he’s got any questions I’ve got his sodding answers. Don’t you say a _bleeding_ word to me,” he snarls when Pereval opens his mouth, “unless it’s ‘Yes, ser.’ Are we clear?”

Pereval’s gone pale and waxy. Carver doesn’t feel sorry for him in the slightest. “Yes, ser.”

It’s not enough, but it’ll do for now. “Get out of my sight.” 

At least he goes quick enough. Carver takes a breath, and then another, and then _another_ , but none of them help, and neither does the sight of Selwyn smoothing his robes, fastening the toggles and running a shaking hand through his hair.

“Are you,” but he can’t say ‘all right’, none of this is all right. “Did he hurt you?”

Selwyn clears his throat. “Only a little, this time.”

Carver clenches his teeth. “Has he ever hurt you a lot?”

“Not yet. But, there are signs,” and Selwyn’s vague gesture somehow makes it all worse.

“I’ll take care of him,” Carver says, not sure what to do. “The Knight Captain--”

“You still think he doesn’t know?” Selwyn takes a deep breath. “Cullen smacks their hands and lets them go. He’s useless.”

It is only when Barker clears his throat that Carver realises he’s still in the room. “What?”

Barker’s voice is flat with distaste. “It would be hard to make anything stick. The worst it counts as is fraternisation, and then you have to punish the mage too.”

“ _What?_ ” Carver can’t … that’s pathetic. “What d’you fucking mean?”

“That’s how fraternisation works,” Barker says quietly, and it isn’t until he sees the way Barker recoils that Carver realises he’s bared his teeth in a silent snarl. “ _Ser_. That’s why no-one ever complains.”

That’s just … mad. It’s insane. “Then what am I supposed to _do_ about it?”

Selwyn and Barker exchange a look, and then Selwyn sighs, tilting his face up to stare pointedly at the ceiling.

“Fucking _void_ , Selwyn. This is … how long has this been going on?”

“In general? Since always.” He doesn’t meet Carver’s eye, and his mouth makes a pained shape Carver can’t bear to look at. “But with Pereval, only a few months.”

Only? Maker, Carver thinks his teeth might crack if he clenches them any harder. Breath. He needs to _breathe_. “Okay. _Okay_. So, we go to the Knight Captain--”

Selwyn rolls his eyes, “He doesn’t _care_ ,” he starts, but Carver doesn’t let him finish.

“We _go to the Knight Captain_ , and then … then if nothing happens, I’ll just … I don’t know. But he won’t go near you again, I won’t let him.”

Selwyn smooths a hand down the front of his robes, now neat as a pin. “You’ve done enough, thank-you. Now he thinks I’m yours I doubt he’ll look at me cross-wise ever again.”

“That isn’t the point!” Carver’s knuckles itch with the urge to just _smash something_ , to draw his sword and slam it into, oh, anything, and what is he supposed to _do_? “Is that what all this was about? Claiming _territory_? For the love of Andraste, Selwyn! This isn’t … you can’t just … fucking _hell_.”

The silence is broad and awful, and then Selwyn shifts his stance, his slippers quiet against the stone floor. “You can’t protect us all. I know you think you can but … you can’t.” He tucks his hands into his sleeves, tossing his head so that his hair slips smooth and silky across his collar, and he’s so fragile, mage-slim and easy to break, and Carver shakes his head because it’s just not fair. “Maybe only one or two of us. I’d like it if one of those were me.”

“Just you, yeah? And what, I let the rest give it up for dick-rot fuck-faces like Pereval?”

“I’m sure someone will find him better than the alternative.”

“Which is what?”

Selwyn smiles a pale ghost of his real smile. “Someone worse.”

* * *

Cullen hears him out, his face gone smooth and expressionless in the early morning light. Carver waited til he knew Cullen would be robed and armoured; for this he needs the Knight Captain, Second in Command of the Gallows, not sleepy-eyed Cullen with his soft and guarded smiles. For this Carver needs the Cullen that is cast in iron, hard and unyielding.

When Carver is done, Cullen at first says nothing. His hands rest curled in their gauntlets on the desk, near to one another but not quite touching, and his shoulders are stiff beneath his pauldrons, his spine straight, his chin sharp and firm with the shadows of the morning slanting across his cheek. “This,” he says at last, “is a delicate business. You are aware, I assume, of how our Commander views such indiscretions.”

Carver bites down on a protest, takes a breath, and firms his stance, hands held rigid behind his back. “It’s a bit more than an ‘indiscretion’, ser,” he says instead.

Cullen closes his eyes for a moment, but then he nods. “You are correct. Forgive me, I am never comfortable with matters of this nature.” He fixes Carver with a firm look. “Ser Pereval needs censure, certainly. It is inappropriate for a knight of the Order to have any intimate contact with a mage in his care, and unacceptable to force attention where it is unwanted. However,” and there is a reluctance in his tone, a distaste for what he means to say that puts Carver’s teeth on edge, “the Knight Commander has made it clear that in her estimation the mage is to be held equally at fault, should such incidents occur. She believes,” and Carver cannot miss the careful way he says it, how he chooses his words, “that to do otherwise would invite baseless accusations from mages against Templars. It is … an extreme view.”

“It’s--” but Carver cuts himself off before he can say it.

Cullen lifts his chin. “It is? Please, speak your mind.”

Well, then. “Bullshit, ser.” He shakes his head, feeling helpless and angry. “It’s like … How can she blame _them_ , when we can’t even… we can’t even protect them, ser, we can’t _do_ it like this, and it’s our _duty_.” 

There’s another stretch of silence, and Carver has to watch as Cullen lifts a hand to rub his armoured fingertips against the bridge of his nose, watch him grimace as though pained by it. “You are not alone in that opinion, Hawke. But this is, sadly, a matter in which I have very little power. Should you choose to publicly reprimand Ser Pereval for his abuse of position, to make it a matter of record, there will be consequences for Selwyn, also. However,” and he makes a tempering gesture with one hand, meeting Carver’s eye and holding it, “should you feel it necessary to punish Ser Pereval in less official ways, I would not reprove you. You have my full support, in that regard.”

Carver doesn’t get it. Or, actually, he thinks he does, but he doesn't know what to do with the vague fragility of Cullen’s words, so he can’t help but bust them open. “So, I’ve your leave to make his life a sodding misery?”

“If that is how you choose to deal with it, I have no objection.” Cullen doesn’t smile. This, Carver thinks, is important, not because Cullen is angry (he’s not angry with _Carver_ , at least) but because it is _serious_. “Whatever you deem necessary. Within reason, my knight -- I will not authorise torture in my Gallows, not for punishment nor sport. I would not have you allow this to make of you a monster.”

Carver thinks he gets _that_ , at least. Still. “Maybe it takes a monster to fight monsters, ser.”

“Ah. The Grey Warden way.” Cullen tips his head to one side, regarding Carver with something that might be sadness, might be disappointment, and it rips at him, tears him somewhere deep inside where he wants only that Cullen think well of him. “Consider, if you will, that perhaps it may take light to conquer the shadow. I would that you were a beacon in the darkness, Hawke, rather than just another beast to tear out the throats of beasts.” He shakes his head, and he seems so weighed down, so very weary. Carver never wanted to add to whatever burdens he has, but still, this burden is necessary, and he cannot turn away from it now that he’s seen it. “If you are uncertain, in any way, I would have you come to me for direction. But, if you have certainty, I would give you rein enough to deal with the matter. And I promise you I will support and shield you, always. As I trust you will, for me.”

It’s unfair, Carver thinks, how much he wants to please Cullen, how much he would do for him. But. "I’m your man, ser, you know that.”

“I believe you are,” and he does smile then, but it’s too wretched and Carver doesn’t want it. “Go, and do the Maker’s work, in all things.”

Carver knows he will, or at least he’ll try, and the words are enough for now.


	9. Chapter 9

Fenris avoids Templars these days. He cannot avoid them completely but when he sees them marching brashly through Hightown or guarding the Chantry, Fenris pulls away, takes to the shadows, tries to remain unobtrusive as he watches them. He does not see Carver but every helmed Templar could be him and Fenris does not want Carver to see _him_ , so he examines them all from a distance, looking for a quirk of the body that might pick out his (no longer his) Hawke from the others.

There is no sign, though, and Fenris cannot be sure but he suspects that Carver avoids Hightown in the same way that Fenris avoids the Gallows. 

He becomes complacent, then, in his errands, and perhaps it is no wonder that the confrontation, when it comes, is not with Carver and also not in Hightown.

Fenris has taken to assisting Orana with household purchases; he insists still that she carry the money and make her own decisions with regard to their food, stepping in only when he believes she is being taken advantage of, or choosing a particularly unpalatable wine. His part is largely confined to carrying goods or holding the Bean whenever Orana needs both hands to examine produce, and it is while he is holding the Bean one gloomy day that he becomes suddenly aware of the Templar armour gathered nearby.

He cannot remove himself, not without running the risk of Orana’s alarm should he suddenly disappear with her child, but he makes himself small and unobtrusive and hopes it will come to nothing.

The Maker is against him. 

A woman’s voice: “Andraste’s _snatch_ , is that--?”

The clank of plate gives him some warning before a shadow falls across the patch of ground he has determined to stare at until they go away.

“Serrah Fenris?”

He looks up. There are four of them, and one takes off his helmet. It is Carver’s dark-faced friend, Ser Barker, and the others gather behind him in a clutch, helmets turned toward him like the flat-beaked faces of birds.

Fenris draws himself up, settles the Bean against his shoulder, and does not know how to proceed. “Ser Barker. Greetings to you.”

“And to you, in the sight of the Maker.” Ser Barker examines him and Fenris does not like it, does not like at all how he is regarded, and there is nothing he can do about it in the face of so many Templar helmets. Ser Barker, though, has no such reluctance. “You are well, serrah?”

Serrah, again. Fenris does not know why the Templar would still style him so, but he rises up into it, holds the baby safe against his shoulder and meets Ser Barker’s eye. “I am alive,” he says, the least of the things he could say. “Well enough.”

Ser Barker’s voice is flat as an unruffled pond. “And the child’s mother too, I trust?”

Fenris mislikes it, mislikes the interrogation and the way in which the others turn their helmets upon him, gawking each in their turn. Meanwhile, the Bean is restless, and Fenris shifts him with a soothing hand against his back. “She is well enough for your concern.”

Ser Barker’s mouth thins. “Should I congratulate you on a son, serrah?”

“No congratulations are necessary,” Fenris deflects, but the man is merciless.

“On a daughter, then?”

Fenris cannot help it; he bares his teeth. “It is no business of yours. Do not offer me cold congratulations when you owe me nothing and I owe to you nothing, nor to--” but he swallows the rest of it.

The Templar seems to understand him in any case. He makes a small bow, too polite from a human, a _Templar_ , to an elf. “Shall I convey your regards to my Knight Corporal?”

Fenris cannot speak. It is too cruel, and yet, _Do I not deserve his cruelty in this? When I have wounded Carver so._ Or, perhaps, Hawke does not care, has no more mind for him. _Perhaps he has forgotten me._

Suddenly, Fenris must know. “Is he well? Your Knight Corporal, I .. Carver, does he …” but he cannot ask if Carver has taken a new lover, that is not--

“He is _alive_ ,” Ser Barker says sharply, and Fenris bites his tongue on a curse because those words echoed back are a bed he has made for himself. “He might appreciate your greeting, should you choose to give it.”

But Fenris has nothing, there is nothing to say and no reason, and so he bows his head, takes a deep breath, and he says, “Tell him … tell him nothing.”

“Indeed.” Ser Barker squares his shoulders, make a gesture with one hand that makes the other Templars step back, though Fenris can see one, at least, reluctant about it. “Well. The Maker’s blessing on you, Serrah Fenris. And on your family,” and he turns away, donning his helmet and collecting his knights in his wake.

Such a brash, bold man. And Fenris has nothing to confront him with, nothing at all.

Orana comes up, offers him the basket and accepts the restless Bean in exchange.

Fenris does not mean to look back. There is nothing to look back upon. But he does, and by then the Templars have vanished into the crowd.

* * *

Carver hates Barker’s tablets, but he finds one in his office that is clean-swiped and blank, and he settles down to etch into it because, well, he has to.

_keep watch on pereval_  
alistair (everything)  
apprentices need watching too  
keep recruits off alistair’s back  
watch on Selwyn  
recruits genrally  
pax and harrowing 

and then he stops, because … fuck, It’s a lot already, and where the void is Barker, this is his job, isn’t it?

Except it isn’t just _his_ job, this is Barker making Carver’s job easier and, aaaargh, it’s all bullshit anyway.

Save for the part where he needs to keep an eye on Selwyn _and_ Pereval, and, Maker’s fucking _nuts_ , that part is first up. _Make Pereval’s life shit_ , he etches into the wax, and then he puts dots around it, and then a star, and then some other marks because more than anything that’s what he’s going to do.

He’s used to noise around his door because the corridor outside gets a lot of traffic, but still he does notice when the noise picks up, and especially when it’s whispering. Maker, why do people think whispering gets them off the hook? Sure, you can’t hear most of it, but he can hear the _sound_ of it, so he gets up, puts down the tablet, and goes over to yank open the door.

He’s expecting recruits (they do that sometimes, hang around his door working up the courage to ask for a leave day or to beg off a penance or a lenience in some other way) but this time he’s surprised to find Barker up against the wall with Paxley and Ruvena bracketing him in.

“All right, you lot?” Carver demands, confused by it all.

Paxley makes a face. “Fine, really. We’re _fine_. Right?”

“Yeah, just fucking fine,” and Ruvena shoves Barker hard, her hand square in the middle of his chest, but Barker pushes her away, and the look he gives Carver is awful.

“ _We’re_ fine,” he says, and Ruvena catches at his arm but he shakes her roughly away. “But … may I speak with you, Knight Corporal?”

“Maker’s _sake_ ,” Ruvena mutters, but then she holds up her hands. “I’m out. It’s no fucking good.”

She grabs Paxley’s arm and he glances up, eyes wide and awful before he lowers them, says nothing, and lets her pull him away. Carver doesn’t know what to think of that.

“All right, Barks?”

Barker frowns after them but he comes in, shuts the door, and he doesn’t sit down at once, just hovers like a bumblebee. “Drink, ser?”

That’s bad. “You think I need one?”

Barker nods, and he pulls up a flask from his belt that … okay, Barker _doesn’t_ carry booze around, so this has to be serious. _It’s probably nothing,_ Carver tells himself, and yeah, it sounds okay in his head, but the look on Barker’s face is something else entirely.

Barker fumbles the lid off his flask and hands it up. Carver takes a pull, wipes his mouth, hands it back. He’s expecting the worst, ( _I got someone pregnant, ser,_ or _Today I killed a man, ser,_ ) but Barker just leans a hand on the back of the chair set out for visitors and fixes Carver with a terrible look.

“I saw your Fenris today.”

No ‘ser’, nothing to soften it, and Carver doesn’t know how to respond. “Oh?” he says, and then, “Okay. He _lives_ here, so.” It’s nothing.

But Barker takes another swig of his flask and offers it up again. “I saw him with a woman. An elf.”

Probably just Orana, Carver decides, but he takes the flask and he shrugs. “Yeah?”

But Barker doesn’t let go, insists in a way that is … Maker, Carver wishes he wouldn’t. “I saw him with a baby, Hawke. An elf-child, and--”

but Carver can’t, he _can’t_

He _has_ to. “I,” he tries, but then everything goes out from under him and … no. “I don’t care,” he says, because he _does_ but it’s so foolish. “I _don’t_ care.”

Barker doesn’t try to catch Carver’s eye. “If it were me, I’d care if .. if my lover did that. I’d care a whole _fucking_ lot.” He does look up then, and Carver can feel the weight of Barker’s regard like a stone. “ _Hawke_. I wouldn’t judge you ill for caring.”

Why is there no air in here? Carver tries to find it but there’s so little, and he sucks in another breath in an attempt to find some but there’s _none_. “I _don’t_ ,” he says, though--

 _I knew it, I_ knew _you wanted … fuck’s sake, Fenris, why did you_ lie _to me?_

But ... he knows why. _Easier, that way._

Except this is _worse_ , and maybe … maybe Fenris didn’t mean it to be, maybe it’s all just--

No. No, that’s worse than foolish. _Find your feet,_ he thinks, and it comes in Cullen’s voice. _Find your_ ground _, my knight. You do not need this. It is a distraction._

“He’s not my lover, anymore. I’m fine,” he says, and he shakes himself, sinks down into his chair, and he meets Barker’s eyes even though … “What else do you have for me?”

“What?” Barker frowns. “Hawke, I--”

“You got anything else for me? You always _do_ ,” Carver says, and Barker looks so … but it doesn’t matter.

“Nothing else. This was … I thought you’d want to know.” He sounds uncertain now, and Carver thinks, _I could upend you, if only I wanted--_ but he doesn’t know where the thought comes from.

“Uh. Thanks, I guess. But I really don’t give a shit what Fenris does anymore.” It’s such a lie.

“Fine, then.” Barker looks uncertain still, and Carver makes a vague gesture to send him on his way. “As you say, ser.”

But he pauses with the door half-open, and then he steps back in, closing the door again at his back, his face hard and fierce, and Carver has never seen him like this, save once, when he thought Carver a monster. 

“No, ser. No, I know ... I _saw_ you. I thought, and I _felt_ as though,” and he takes a breath, leaning up against the door as though clinging to a rock at sea. “Did you not care for him?”

Carver takes a moment to find the strength to answer it. “I did. He made it clear, though--”

“Did he? You’ve never said, you never say anything about it but we all...” Barker frowns, clutches a fist by his thigh. “If there is anything I can ... but I don’t know.” He fixes Carver with a hard glare. “I have your side, Hawke. I swear.” 

It feels … it’s weird for it to feel so good when Carver feels so _bad_ about everything. But it does, and he nods, and crosses the room to catch Barker’s shoulder and grip it, Barker’s armour rigid beneath Carver’s leather-sheathed palm. “I need you. Even … even when I don’t like the things you make me do, you’re always right, you know? So,” but he’s not sure what he’s trying to say.

Barker licks his lips, blinking those dark eyes above that beaky nose, and Carver … definitely doesn’t want anything. “I’m your man.”

“Good. I … fuck, I don’t know. I guess … it doesn’t matter what, what Fenris does. He can do whatever he wants, now.” Because it’s _done_. Still. “Kinda like to punch his face, though.” Except he wouldn’t, and Fenris would kill him if he tried. 

“I thought you’d rather hear it from me than someone else.” Barker frowns, looking down. “It’s not as though _that_ could make you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

Barker looks up, his mouth curving into something rueful and sharp. “You used to. You weren’t exactly quiet about it.”

“You used to be a _dick_ ,” Carver argues, and it makes Barker snort.

“And you were so much _better_.”

Carver takes a deep breath, lets go of Barker and leans back on his heels. “I was a twat. But … it was ages ago. We’re okay now, aren’t we?”

“Better than,” Barker says, and he reaches for Carver’s wrist, fingers tight around the sheath of Carver’s armour. “I am, as I have said.”

“Mine, right?”

Barker’s smile is deliberate but there is something in it that makes Carver want to grab him and, and he doesn’t know. Keep him, somehow. Make him stay. Except-- “Must you ask? You’re dense, Hawke, but I never thought you _that_ dense.”

It’s okay, It’s going to be okay. And Fenris … he doesn’t have to think about Fenris. “Dense enough, though. Sometimes you gotta tell me twice.”

“Or three times,” and Barker lets him go, settles against the door, looking content until his face shifts into concern again. “I won’t ask again. If you want to … if there is anything, you’ll have to tell me.”

“Fine,” Carver says, and he’s not fine, but it’ll do for now. “I’m fine.”

“Very well, ser.” Barker shoves off from the door and Carver backs up to give him room to pull the thing open and step into the corridor. “See you at dinner?”

“Yeah.” Though … “Maybe. I’m not really hungry.”

“You should eat, anyway.” And _this_ frown is more familiar, and a thousand times more welcome. “Don’t starve yourself, Hawke. No-one benefits from that.”

* * *

Fenris has drunk too much tonight, feels it weigh heavy and restless in his gut. It makes him stagger when he needs to pace, shake when he needs to be steady, and he cannot read, cannot sit, cannot _think_ , is a wreck upon the shores of his wretchedness. He itches to break something, to howl his unhappiness into the night sky, but what would that achieve? Nothing. Worse than nothing; it would expose him, and he has tried so hard not to show this … this misery.

 _I have traded everything for nothing,_ he thinks, but then, _he is better off without me_ , and, _I am better off without him,_ though that thought tastes like ashes, like dust, like the ruin of every thing he has ever admitted to himself that he wanted.

It is melodramatic. Fenris refuses to be melodramatic, though he suspects it is in his nature, and one cannot change one’s nature, he is almost sure.

 _My nature is mutiny,_ he tells himself, but is that what he wants? _My nature is obedience,_ but he does not want that either. How it tears at him, how awful it is to be wrenched between obedience and self-governance. How much easier it would be if Carver were here and would tell him and he could _do_ it, whatever Carver wanted, but still…

 _My nature is destruction._

It rings too true, and he gulps down a breath that is so heavy it threatens to choke him. _I am more than just a monster,_ he tries, though it is hard. _The child does not fear me._ Though perhaps he should. _The child has nothing to fear from me,_ and that, too, is true, because he would _die_ first, and there, melodramatic again except …

He finds himself halfway down the stair before he realises where he is going, staggers hard against the bannister before righting himself and stumbling down the last few steps. He _needs_... he does not know what he needs, but he knows where Orana is, where the child is, where there is warmth and comfort and safety.

The kitchen is empty but there is light spilling from the doorway behind which Orana and her child take their rest, and Fenris has never been in there but now, now he needs to, so he blunders up against the doorframe-- “Orana.”

She startles, dropping her needlework into her lap. “Serrah!”

He does not go in. It is not … it _is_ his house, but no more his than hers, two slaves squatting together in the abandoned husk of this cursed mansion, and the realisation rocks him for a moment. This is _her_ house. This is her _room_. He cannot go in uninvited. “Please,” he begs in the doorway, and it takes him a moment, in his cups, to register the alarm and resignation that washes over her face.

“Whatever you wish, serrah.”

She tucks her needlework aside -- she is sewing another garment for the child, he sees, who seems to ruin them so very quickly -- and stands, smoothing her skirts but not meeting his eye and no, no, she is _wrong_ , every angle of her limbs is wrong, this is not what he wants.

“Not that. I do not want that. But, the baby …”

Her chin comes up, and then she _frowns_. “He is sleeping.”

“He is always sleeping. Let me, Orana, I need to … let me, all I want is,” but he doesn’t know. “Let me hold him.”

Orana looks from him to the welter of blankets on her pallet, and takes a deep breath before she looks back. “You might hurt him, serrah.”

“I will not!” How could she think it?

But she moves, stepping neatly between the door and the bed with a resolution that is unfamiliar when it comes from her. “Serrah. You are …” and the gesture she makes is weak but it cuts him deep. “Too much wine.”

Ah! How that hurts, and how true it is, and how he _wishes_. “But … Orana, _please_ , if you would only let me … I _need_ to.”

“No.” When she meets his eye she is _firm_ , and another time he would welcome it, but now … and yet, she _is_ firm, and he must not, no he mustn’t.

Fenris swallows the bile in his throat and holds out his hands, showing her the naked fragility of his wrists and open palms, though it pains him to do so. “May I see him? Just to look at him… will you permit that?”

She does not move at first, and how _blank_ she is, how flat and merciless. It is … this is good, is it not? He should be _glad_ for her.

Eventually she nods, turns away to fuss with the blankets, and then, _then_ she carries the baby, their little Bean, to the door, and shows Fenris the cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms.

He is still sleeping, his soft face smooth and helpless in the crook of her arm, and Fenris feels some of his terrible restlessness drain away just at the sight of him. He lifts a hand, stops himself, and then lets it fall. Maker, how perfect the baby is, how _precious_. Fenris would do anything, anything at all to safeguard him, to shield him, would cut and claw at any who dared to threaten him.

The baby grimaces, curls up tight against the warmth of his mother’s breast, one tiny hand opening and closing on nothing and … it is enough.

Fenris wants to touch him but he does not, limbs so heavy and useless, and the sigh that escapes his lungs leaves him empty.

“Thank-you,” he says, and he forces himself to step back, to walk away, the whole length of the kitchen and the stairs and the distance from the doorway of his room to the bed where he buries his face in a pillow and tries to breathe.

It’s enough. More than enough, he tells himself, and really … well, it will have to be.

* * *

“You…” The memory is tantalisingly out of reach, but Carver knows how he feels. “You _lied_ to me.”

“Everyone lies,” Fenris says, his smile thin and reptilian and _wrong_.

“Why are you doing this? Why won’t you … Maker, Fenris, what’s going on?”

“You’re angry.” Fenris leans up against the wall, and he lifts Carver’s hands, curls them loosely around his throat. “You can hurt me, if you’re angry with me. If you think I deserve it.”

“I don’t want to _hurt_ you, Fenris, I fucking … I _love_ you!”

Fenris shudders, eyes fluttering closed. “Love isn’t real. There is only need, and desire.”

"I don't --" It hits him like a wave; he sees Fenris (not Fenris) realise it, and then the claws go in under his shoulderblades, cold and sharp as knives, and he cannot help the cry that comes out of his mouth.

“You _do_ , though. How very much you do. But … perhaps,” and the claws retract, fingers smoothing warm and soothing across his wounded skin. “There is something else. Perhaps it is this, then, that you want.”

Everything blurs. Carver blinks, shakes his head, tries to hold onto the knowledge that none of this is real, except … except he can’t remember, and…

Cullen smiles at him, fingers teasing through the short hair at the nape of Carver’s neck. “Better?”

“I don’t,” but Cullen is sighing, resting his brow against Carver’s, breath as sweet as a fresh-baked pastry, and Carver … no. This isn’t... “Stop it. Stop, just stop. I know you’re not, not him. You’re not anyone, you’re just … why are you doing this to me?”

“Because you’re easy,” the demon-with-Cullen’s-face tells him, and how dare he wear that rueful smile, how dare he _look_ like that? “You’re begging for it, really. How could I resist?”

“I’m _not_ ,” and Carver tries to pull away but there are strong arms around him, strong hands flat against his spine, and the scent of baked-bread-and-spices filling his head.

“Better me than one of the others. Sloth could never catch you. Rage would leave you hollow. Pride? Imagine your pride, burning you to ash. With me, at least, you’ll retain part of yourself. And I can give you everything you ever wanted if only you _let me in_.”

It’s Cullen, but it’s not Cullen, and the effort it takes to wrench himself free is almost impossible. “I won’t.” He reaches for his sword, and it feels like an age before his hand closes on leather-wrapped steel. “I _don’t want you_.” 

“Admit that you do.” Cullen’s face is so wrong in this shape, the expression strange and horrible. “Admit it to yourself, if no-one else.”

“ _No_.”

He steps off, swings, and the world crumbles into dust.

He wakes hot and sticky, so hard in his smalls that he rubs a hand over himself thinking, _Whatever I was dreaming, it must have been_ something _good_ , though the memory escapes him.

He tries to jerk off but it feels so pointless he gives up, tucks himself away, and splashes his face and neck with tepid water in the hopes it’ll cool him off. It doesn’t help, nothing ever does these days, but he pulls on his robes regardless, and goes out to face the morning.

Cullen is weary over breakfast, and Carver wonders out loud if maybe his Knight Captain would rather eat alone today. 

Cullen shakes his head. “No. Please, stay. I apologise if I am … I did not sleep well.”

“Bad dreams, ser?” Carver resolutely does _not_ watch Cullen lick his porridge spoon, does not squirm, refuses to acknowledge the ache in his crotch that never seems to die down these days.

“Only to be expected,” Cullen sighs, picking at his fruit. He blinks up at Carver and seems to steel himself. “Nothing to concern you, Hawke. Please, do not make that face. I cannot bear it if you worry over me.”

Carver tries not to, but it’s hard. “Just wanna know you’re all right, ser. _I’ll_ sleep better, knowing that.”

“But I too would sleep better knowing that _you_ are -- ah. It is a vicious circle.” 

Cullen’s smile is weak but genuine, and then he ruins it by choosing a slice of pear and eating it with his fingers. Does he _have_ to lick them? Is that really necessary?

“-- in any case.”

Carver blinks, and realises he hasn’t been listening. “Sorry, ser. What did you say?”

Cullen frowns, picks up his spoon to tap it restlessly against the side of his bowl. “That you seem distracted. And that you have my full attention, should there be anything troubling you. Besides … that is to say _including_ the things I know _do_ trouble you. But if there is anything new, or anything at all, please, make free with me.”

 _Make free with me_... He always says these things, always has, and Carver tries _so hard_ not to think _things_ about it. _My Knight Captain would never,_ he tells himself, though … honestly …

He looks up. Cullen has dark hollows under his eyes and Carver wants to …

He shouldn’t want that. “I’m all right,” he says, because maybe he can give Cullen a _bit_ of ease, this way. “Just some bad dreams, too.”

“There are few things more tiresome than to listen to another man’s dreams,” Cullen says, but there’s something quiet in it that makes it sound more than it is. “Still, for you, even if it is only that, you have all my attention.”

If only Carver could remember. “I don’t always, when I wake up, remember any of them. Even if--” and he breaks off, feeling stupid.

But Cullen smiles one of his private-in-the-morning smiles. “Those might be the worst, when you can’t remember.” He shifts in his seat, one boot clubbing up against Carver’s own. “With the same dissatisfaction in your blood.”

“Yeah,” Carver says, glad that they talked … well, sort of around it, anyway. “That’s … I guess that’s how it is, ser. You?”

“The same, mostly.” He reaches for the pot. “More tea?”

* * *

When Fenris wakes it is because Orana is in his room. She is cleaning; he wishes she wouldn’t, wishes she would leave it until later but he knows it is late in her morning, and when she is cleaning for him he finds it difficult to tell her not to.

She must hear him stir. “Serrah,” she says, and though his head is woolly he can hear only a warm welcome, and none of the censure he deserves. “Good day to you.”

“Good morning,” he grumbles, and she does not laugh but there is laughter in her face when she approaches the bed. She has the Bean wound in cloth close to her breast, and she unwinds him neatly, tucks the cloth around him, and offers him up. 

“Serrah? If you would … I would be grateful, should you mind him while I carry out the slops.”

There is a part of Fenris that wants to say, ‘No, I will do it for myself,’ but his hands are already out already taking the weight of the baby, who makes angry sounds until Fenris has him cradled against his chest. Then the Bean reaches up, seemingly delighted to see him, and Fenris cannot possibly do anything except stroke his fat belly and smooth fingers through the scarcity of his hair.

Maker bless, he is so _soft_. He clutches at Fenris’ face with his sharp-nailed hands, tiny little claws, and when Fenris blows out his breath the baby giggles, as though Fenris is nothing more than an entertainment for him.

It is, Fenris thinks, just another kind of slavery, how they both fawn around the child, bending endlessly to his needs, and yet…

The Bean coughs up some milk; Fenris wipes it away and sets him on his front to wobble about in the corral of Fenris’ blanketed legs. He cannot go far, and Fenris would not let him, but always he comes _back_ falls over and tries to right himself but always, _always_ coming back to grab at Fenris’ thighs and trying to pull himself up. 

“Ba,” he says, and that is a not a word in any language Fenris knows … unless it is some bastardisation of Qunlat, and the idea of that makes Fenris snort and then the baby snorts too -- in imitation, Fenris guesses. Whatever the reason, the Bean makes ‘ba’ sounds, hitting Fenris in the chest with his fat little fist, but Fenris cannot censure him, cannot do anything except catch the fist and kiss the tiny knuckles and feel …

Happy. It is good. 

“Ba? But what?” he says aloud, catching those hands and holding them up.

The Bean plummets forward into Fenris’ lap, and Fenris bundles him up again to bury his nose in the milky-sweetness of the baby’s hair. 

“ _Ma aureum_ ,” Fenris whispers, and his heart feels so _full_ maybe it will burst.

“Ma,” The Bean says, and he tips back his head to laugh, eyes bright and beautiful, and Fenris thinks, _This. just this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Ma aureum' I must admit I got from [Katie's Almost Totally Made-Up Tevene Dictionary/Reference](http://archiveofourown.org/works/227715/chapters/345346). I like it a lot so I'm going with it. Cred to [katiebour](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katiebour/pseuds/katiebour) in any case.
> 
> This chapter jumps around a lot. Pacing-wise I'm not sure if that is good or bad. Please advise if it doesn't work for you -- I have been writing without a beta reader since the start of part 3 and flying TOTALLY blind. It's quite terrifying, just so you know. (If anyone wants to help, well, you would receive many demanding phone calls of terror so ... I strongly discourage you from wanting that. I say this as a friend. DON'T.)


	10. Chapter 10

"He's fine," Paxley says in the dusk of the Harrowing chamber; he says it too quickly and a tiny worm of doubt twists in Carver's guts.

Carver clears his throat. “Let me look.” He avoids Paxley’s eye, tries to ignore the flash of his indignation, and peers into the apprentice’s face.

Gordie blinks nervously at him, licking his lips and bunching shaking fists in the sleeves of his robes, and he’s all nerves but he looks … fine. Like Paxley said.

“All right. You’re good to go.”

Paxley doesn’t say anything about it until they’re out in the corridor; when he does his voice is low and tight, and utterly unlike him. “I hate Harrowing. There has to be a better way.”

Carver can’t argue with it. “That’d be nice.”

The look Paxley throws him is sharp as a blade. “Nice? Not to put them through hell and then _murder_ them for failing? That would be ‘nice’?”

Carver bristles. “It’s not murder, it’s a duty. Did a mage tell you that? Who called it murder?”

“No-one, it just … you can’t think it’s right.” And again, Carver can’t argue. Still, Paxley is looking at him with this wounded, expectant expression that Carver can’t bear. 

“We’re Templars, Pax. It’s our duty to stand before the corrupt and wicked and not falter. And, the mages, it’s their duty too. So if a mage gets, you know, _possessed_ … they failed their duty. And we have to do ours.”

“Some of the things we do, though.” Paxley shakes his head, and the hunch of his shoulders makes Carver feel wretched. “Stealing children. Locking them up. Shoving them into a room to face a--”

“Pax!” Carver cuts him off, conscious of a pair of recruits trotting past; the girls tip him a salute and he nods, and Paxley sighs, watching them go.

“And then we keep them locked up. Forever. Unless someone thinks they’re trouble and then we,” and he makes a firm, horribly descriptive gesture with his fist, “Tranquil, just like that. Even when they're Harrowed, so what's the _point_ of it?”

“Pax, it's our _duty_ ," Carver says, and Paxley just looks at him in this _way_ , and Carver knows that it was the wrong thing to say.

But then there's a recruit, out of breath, at Carver's shoulder. "Ser!"

She has frizzy hair and freckles, so he thinks her name is Gilead. "Recruit?"

"Ruvena wants you in the apprentice quarters."

" _Ser_ Ruvena," Carver reminds her, automatically, "Why, what's wrong?"

"Is it Libs?" Paxley asks, eyes cutting from one of them to the other.

The recruit shakes her head. "Just come, will you ser?"

Carver does, and Paxley comes with him.

It isn't Libby, actually, it's all of them, and a burnt chair that no-one wants to own up to. The duty Lieutenant is Nottely, and he's all right, mostly, but he doesn't like mages and he doesn't like Carver, and even though he's not throwing the words 'blood magic' around he's still angry. 

Carver tries his best. "Even if it _was_ a fireball--" which he doubts, actually, but the Knight Lieutenant cuts him off anyway.

"Unauthorised use of magic by an apprentice," Nottely snaps, and Ruvena opens her mouth but Carver just glares at her until she shuts it. "Work duty for all present, unless the culprit confesses, or is surrendered."

"They're not recruits," Carver argues, "they're just _kids_."

"Nigellus is eighteen years old," Nottely says sharply, his eyes narrowing. "Man enough to know the right thing to do."

"Oh, come _on _, ser."__

Nottely fixes him with a stony look. "I can give you a penance too, Knight Corporal, if you'd like."

It's so unfair. 

Tamika is whispering fiercely to Nellie, and Nellie's shaking her head, but then Tamika just shoves her out of the way and steps forward with her chin up. "It was me. So, I'll have the penance."

"No!" and Nellie grabs Tamika's arm, shaking her hard. "It was _me_ , ser knight. You should punish _me_."

"Shut up, Nell!" Tamika hisses, kicking savagely at Nellie's feet. The red-haired girl skips neatly out of the way and glares at her, but Tamika rounds on the Knight Lieutenant, fists clenched by her thighs. "She's lying, she's .. she's a _liar_!"

Nellie looks furious. "You little _witch_!"

Maker's _mercy_. On the one hand Carver's glad they're friends now, or whatever it is they are, but on the other he wishes they'd choose better ways to show it, and it makes him groan. "Settle down, you two!"

"Hmm." Nottely nods, eyeing the girls narrowly. "Penances for you both, then. One for the fire, and one for lying. Whichever of you _that_ might be."

Tamika makes an exasperated noise; Nellie just drops a curtsey and says, "Yes, ser knight. Thank-you."

"Don't _thank_ him," Tamika wails, but Nottely has already turned on his heel to walk out, ignoring them both.

Well, it could have been worse. Somehow.

Carver waits until the Knight Lieutenant has gone, and then he jerks his head for the two girls to follow him. "All right, ladies. Let's have a chat."

Tamika makes a sour face, but they dog his heels out into the corridor, where he stops to give them his best grown-up frown. 

"What really happened?"

Nellie looks at Tamika, who looks back at Nellie, and then they both shrug together, lined up against the wall like mismatched twins. 

"Don't you give me that," he growls, but his growls don't work on either of them anymore, so it gets him nothing more than stubborn expressions. "I'm not going to punish anyone. I just wanna know the truth. It's important, because if one of you lot can't control your sodding fire spells you need more lessons, all right? What if next time someone's hair gets set on fire? What if someone gets _hurt_?"

Nellie starts chewing her lip, but Tamika stays mutinous. "What do _you_ care?"

"You think I don't?"

Tamika's sour face screws up disdainfully. "You're just another _bloody_ Templar!"

It rocks him. He'd thought ... fuck, he'd thought the apprentices liked him. Tolerated him, at least; some of them have come up to him in the corridors, chatting about lessons and chores and, in one embarrassingly memorable case, about something confusing that turned out to be 'being a thirteen-year-old boy'. One of the girls gave him a paper flower once, blushing like anything and, Maker, how he'd blushed right back at her.

He has nothing to say, but he doesn't have to say anything because Libby barrels out of the apprentice dorm and right into Tamika, headbutting the older girl hard in the belly. "He's _not_!" she screams, her hair bristling about her like a thundercloud. "Take that back!"

"Maker's balls!" Carver grabs her by the robes as her little fists go flying, and hauls her back. "Stop that! No hitting!"

Libby bursts into tears, turning against his leg and burying her face in the skirt of his robes, which is ... awkward. She's sobbing something incomprehensible, and Carver looks up, seeking any kind of help from anywhere, and that's when he sees Ruvena and Paxley, watching him from the doorway. "Do something," he pleads, and Ruvena steps out, grinning like anything.

"All right, all right. You," and she nods to the two against the wall, Tamika gasping like a dying fish because she's winded and Nellie crouched down to peer into her friend's face. "The duty Enchanter'll have your penances for you. Go on, get out of here. You're not hurt, Tammy, just suck it up."

Carver gestures at the bundle of tears sobbing into his thigh, but Ruvena just shoos the other two away down the hall like they're ducklings, and shrugs at him in much the same way they had just before.

"That," she says, glancing at the younger apprentice, "is _your_ problem. Come on, Pax. Reckon I owe you a pint."

Paxley grins back at her. "Do you? Well, I won't argue."

"Don't leave me here!" Carver yells after them, but they ignore him, Ruvena waving absently over her shoulder as they go.

Damn it. Some fucking friends they are.

"Hey," Carver tries, bending down to push hair out of Libby's soggy face, trying not to catch any in the joints of his gauntlet cos it'll pull. "You're okay. Don't cry." But Libby just clings to him, and he thinks, _Fuck it._

He picks her up. She's getting really big now, but not yet too heavy to carry, so he holds her against his chestplate and lets her get snot and tears all over his armour while he tries to work out what to do.

Someone clears their throat. Carver looks up. It's Timony, one of the Healers, slicking his hair nervously behind his pointy ears and not making eye contact. "There's a quiet room, Ser Carver. For this kind of thing. Would you like...?"

"Please," Carver breathes gratefully, and lets Timony lead the way. 

The room is small, with a desk and a chair and a potted plant (which seems weird but isn't, really; only Mage rooms have plants in them, the Templars aren't allowed) and Carver sets Libby down on the desk, untangling her hands from his neck and dragging the chair over to sit down almost eye-level.

Timony offers him a soft square of clean linen, and then settles against the wall, pointedly not leaving them alone. Which is ... good, Carver thinks.

Libby's calming down so he mops her face, makes her blow her nose, and then he doesn't know what to do. "You done, little bit?"

She nods, still gulping down hysterical breaths, and he casts about for something to say.

"What's all this about?"

"Y-you can't tell," she stutters, blinking up at him with puffy eyes. "P-promise."

O-okay. "Can't tell what?"

"No, you _promise_. You h-have to."

"I can't promise," he says, because he won't lie to her, even though she's just a little kid. Though ... is she now? She's looking older every time he sees her, and he still doesn't know just _how_ old she is. Still. "If it means someone's going to get hurt, I have to tell. And so do you."

Someone so young shouldn't look so conflicted. "But ... if he gets in trouble again they'll make him Tranquil."

And Carver knows. Merrick's borderline, he knows it -- everybody knows it, though it's supposed to be a secret. He's growing in strength but not in control, and if he doesn't get the hang of his magic soon then they really are going to have to make him Tranquil because he won't make it to his Harrowing.

And today's a Harrowing day, which usually means the apprentices are quiet, but only out of nerves, and Carver can see how nerves might cause someone who was already nervous to bust out, accidentally, and why the others wouldn't want to give him up.

Shit. He can't just walk out with this, can't fucking betray her like that, not when she doesn't even know she's said what she's said. 

"If it wasn't blood magic," he says slowly, acutely aware of the mage against the wall, watching and judging him, "I won't say anything that might get someone made Tranquil." He hopes that's true.

Libby takes a deep breath, swipes her face with the handkerchief, and looks him in the eye. "Promise."

Maker forgive him if he's wrong. "I promise. You can tell me."

"Merrick did it. But he didn't mean to."

Carver nods, relieved. "Okay. I believe you."

"You can't tell," she insists, grabbing one of his pauldrons and shaking it. "You _promised_."

"I won't get him in trouble," Carver tells her, and he means it, Maker's mercy how he _does_. "I'll ..." He doesn't know. But, maybe-- "You know Keili? She's an Enchanter. I'll ask her to see to him. Help him with his lessons. Okay?"

It's worth it for the light that blooms in her face, like dawn coming up over the mountains, and he wishes he could make everything safe for her but ... of course he _can't_. "Okay," she says, and then she has both arms around his neck, the handkerchief squelched soggy and disgusting against the skin above his gorget. "I _love_ you."

Oh, Maker. "I ... okay, Libby."

He tries to pat her back, but she's already wriggling away. "It's Lily, now," she says crossly, glaring at him. "I'm _Lily_. Don't forget."

"Sorry. I'll try."

"Can I go?"

"Yeah," he says, feeling sort of stunned. "Yeah, sure."

She slips down off the desk, drops the soiled hanky in his lap, and runs out, yelling, "Bye, Ser Carver!" as she goes.

It takes him a moment to find his feet; when he does the handkerchief tumbles to the floor and he has to stoop to pick it up. Urgh it's so gross. Even in gauntlets he holds it between finger and thumb, and decides it's better to concentrate on that than to think about anything else.

"Just leave it on the desk, ser knight. The Tranquil will take care of it." Timony's tone is even, almost friendly. Not quite, though, and when Carver meets his eye the mage's expression is blank.

"Thanks," Carver tells him, "for, um, all that." He drops the mucky cloth, and starts for the door but Timony pulls him up short.

"You should leave," he says, smooth enough that at first Carver thinks he can't have heard right.

"What?"

"They'll make you Harrow her otherwise." 

Carver has to swallow. "I know."

Timony shifts, still as blank as a sheet of ice. "If you don't kill her, you'll break her heart. And if you _do_ \--"

"I _know_ , all right?" he snaps, but he can't bring himself to be angry, just... oh, burn _everything_.

The mage closes his mouth, nods, and pushes off the wall. "It's best not to grow attached," he says, and he walks out, hands tucked into opposite sleeves like a damn Chantry brother. If they ever let elves join the Chantry, that is, and why is he even thinking about that now?

Libby... Lily. 

_Beth_. 

But he will, he thinks. He'll have to be the one who Harrows her, one day. Even if it does break his heart.

* * *

The book is old, almost too old to handle, so she is careful with the pages, keeping her hands clean and dry with a cloth despite how Hawke had laughed the first time he saw. Anders, though, had sniffed, casting a reproving glance Hawke's way, and said into the air that precious books needed to be treated with care.

"It's just a book," Hawke said, tugging Anders' coat and grinning. "I spill wine on them all the time."

Anders had glowered at him, had pulled away and wrapped his coat fastidiously about himself like armour. "That's because you're a barbarian," he'd snapped, and Hawke had laughed and made a joke about the Anderfels that Merrill hadn't understood but made Anders' frown deepen.

Still. _This_ book is precious, because it talks about demons and possession and how to remove a demon without damaging the host. Hawke paid a small fortune for it and then tossed it carelessly to Merrill on a chilly afternoon in the markets, and she knew it was because she'd wanted it, because they both wanted to Know How.

The book seems mostly concerned with the host's safety, and not much with the integrity of the demon itself, but one of the passages makes her stop, stare, and read it back over because ... oh. Oh. The implications are broad and wonderfully encouraging, and she feels certain that it could help with the Plan. Hawke will want to know this. She's practically vibrating with excitement by the time she has skipped up the stairs and approached Hawke's door, one hand outstretched to take the handle.

Which is when she hears them. The sounds are unmistakable, and then she remembers the glances traded back and forth earlier, the hitch of Hawke's smile, how Anders had sauntered out, looking back over his shoulder. Hawke had twitched in his chair for a while -- boredom, Merrill had thought -- until he'd excused himself and gone out of the study. She'd waved him off, too engrossed in reading to really pay much mind to what he intended, but now...

It's wrong to listen. Though, honestly, it's nothing to be ashamed of, the sounds they make, and she rests her fingers against the wood of the door, listening to the huff and puff of lovemaking.

 _They are good for one another_ , she tells herself, because Varric said it once and he'd seemed so solemn that she couldn't help believing. But she also couldn't help but think that Varric was trying to tell her that Hawke was not good for _her_ , and that was obviously nonsense. _What's good for the goose is good for the gander_ , Leandra had said one time, and then she'd had to explain but not too much because there was a saying amongst the People, 'The doe can pull as well as the stag,' and Merrill knew what Leandra meant. So, obviously, if Hawke was good for Anders then he was good for _her_ too. Right?

Obviously. But.

This ... this closeness they shared, together, without her, _this_ was something Hawke should share with her too, wasn’t it? If, as he said, he cared for her the same and _if_ , indeed, she _was_ a goose. (Anders had named her so, on an evening where they had all been together, had called her a _goose_ , but the way he said it had been different, as if 'goose' meant something more than she thought it did.)

Still.

She lets her hand fall, moves back along the landing, and then, with her face hot, she hides in her room.

It's a nice room, comfortable with an easily opened window and a wooden halla statue on a small table in the corner. Not that she understands why things need to be set always on tables, even when you aren't using them, just sitting there and waiting to be looked at. It seems a waste of all the craft required to _make_ a table, only to set it in the corner and put ornaments on it.

It's a _nice_ room, and it is hers, but even so she finds it too small, too enclosed. She has to hang her clothes in a, a wardrobe (another piece of crafted wood that seems too lovingly made for such a simple purpose) and she doesn't really need extra clothes but Leandra insists and Hawke goes along with whatever his mother wants in these things and it is so...

Aggravating.

Merrill feels Humanised by it, turned against her nature into something that she does not dislike, precisely, but feels so foreign that sometimes she wonders if she is even Elvhen anymore. Sitting in chairs. Eating so much meat. Bathing indoors, in a bath made of tin and enamel that requires so much _work_ to fill, and she isn't even allowed to fill it herself, has to wait while Bodahn hauls hot buckets up the stairs to fill it for her. She's tried to tell him she could simply warm the water herself with a touch of magic, but he just smiles and says it is no bother, and sometimes he tells her about the glory of dwarven plumbing, which sounds ... unnecessary, honestly. It isn't as though she needs the water to be warmed at all, really. Warm water's nice but it's not necessary.

None of it is, really, necessary. Not any of it.

But .... the Plan, though, _that_ is necessary, because the Plan is like the Eluvian, a fix for a thing that is broken, that could tell them So Much, and be So Useful, and yet seems out of reach. Elusive. Elu-siv-ian ... 

There are patterns between human language and the Speech, between humans and Elvhen, but they are so different that sometimes something that seems almost identical isn't at all. A ‘false cognate’, Anders called it when she said so the other night, him sprawled in a chair and her curled up by the hearth, one of the nights when he was almost reasonable, almost a person and not just ... whatever he is day to day. When he was whatever he used to be before the corruption of Justice.

She wonders if, maybe, she would have liked him then, if maybe he would not have hated her so much.

The rumble of a catty throat jerks her out of her thoughts just in time for her to look down and see a little ball of fur launch out from under the bed, attacking her feet and catching sharp claws in her trouser-cuffs. Merrill bends down to scoop the kitten (almost a cat now, Anders says) into her arms and hug her close. Pawsha -- they named her 'the Divine Pawtensia', because Anders liked it, and also ‘Pawsha’, because Merrill liked it, and both names annoy Sebastian for some reason -- purrs deep in her throat, and Merrill is so glad she's here, so _glad_ of someone to love who won't ...

Won't what? Abandon her? Pawsha does exactly that, whenever Anders has bacon-scraps in his pockets. But, Merrill thinks that were it not for the bacon Pawsha would like _her_ best.

 _As Hawke does not_ , but she knows this thought is not her own, just something devised to confuse her.

 _Not now,_ she thinks firmly, and then, _Go away._

_You know I could help you._

Merrill snorts, banishes the thought and the demon, and sets Pawsha down on the bed; the kitten-cat mews piteously, but Merrill knows she is only asking for food when she has had _plenty_ , and ignores her long enough to strip down and shrug into a nightgown.

Another human thing. Creators _forfend_ Leandra catch her naked again, even in her own room. Humans. So very shy, as though nudity were an embarrassment. _I could be fat and old as a, as a fat old_ whore _and it wouldn't matter to me_.

Wouldn't it? These days?

No.

Pawsha has given up her begging, has discovered a ball of string and is attacking it as though it could mean the salvation of her world, and Merrill loves her, loves her tenacity, loves her _focus_. "It's just string, lethallan," she says, but Pawsha ignores her, intent on her conquest, and it makes Merrill wistful, though she can't say why.

She blinks, realising she’s cloud-chasing. 'Wool-gathering', Leandra calls it, and she disapproves, or maybe it is just Merrill she disapproves of.

She gets into bed, snuffs out the candles with a pinch of magic. The window is open and the breeze is soothing. Pawsha curls up warm under Merrill’s chin, her ribcage rumbling with contentment. It’s peaceful.

There’s no reason for Merrill to lose sleep, but she does, drifting in and out restlessly, avoiding the invitations of her demon and of the others that gather on the edges of her consciousness like great indigo-winged moths. Around her the house is still, quiet, and she can feel the press of dreams as they swell and burst, like mushrooms scattering spore. She can taste the differences of each, Leandra’s dreams sweet and floral, the smooth beech-like savour of Bodahn’s, Sandal a tangy shock of cinnamon and lemon that doesn’t go together at all but suits him nevertheless. And there, Anders, minty-cool and underlaid with rot like leaves over humus over soil, like the woods, like the wind blowing off Sundermount. He shouldn’t taste that way. What would he know of it? How could he _even_ know?

There’s a knife under her pillow; the temptation is strong so she tells herself it isn’t _wrong_ , just to _look_ , and then, a small cut, the sting of magic--

Snow. She’s never seen snow in the Fade before, but this time it’s all hills covered in white, with purple mountains behind, and her feet chill until they’re numb and the feeling goes away entirely. Anders is lying in a drift, snowflakes settling on his face, with his knees up and his arms outstretched and his hair in a mess beneath him. It looks cold but his cheeks are ruddy and he’s smiling.

The smile twists when he sees her. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to visit. Aren’t you wet?”

“It’s not real snow, Merrill,” he drawls, rolling his eyes and sitting up. The snow clings all down the back of him, crusting him in white. “It’s just the next best thing.” He eyes her thoughtfully. “So. Am I dreaming of you, or are you dreaming of me?”

“It’s your dream, but I’m here. Re-eally.”

“Oh.” He makes a face. “ _Blood_ magic. Of course.” He huffs out a breath that mists in the air, but that’s all he says about it.

“Where are we?” Merrill asks. There are trees below them, dark spiky things, and little humps that might be houses. She can smell woodsmoke. There are no birds. Somewhere something makes a long low noise and it takes her a moment to realise it must be one of the shaggy cow-beast things moving slowly down in the valley.

“Fimmskógur,” he says, shaking the snow from his hair. It’s longer than usual, loose around his face. He looks younger, cheeks less gaunt, his chin smooth enough to be Elvhen. He’s on his feet now, walking away, but he glances back over his shoulder. “Well? You’re coming, aren’t you?”

“Do you want me to?” but she’s already picking her way through the snow after him.

“Not particularly. But there’s no-one else here.”

The woods come up all of a sudden, the way things do in the Fade, and then they’re in amongst the dark trunks. The snow is up to Merrill’s knees now but Anders is right, it’s not so cold or wet when she remembers it isn’t real, and then she can walk through it like water.

Someone’s been cutting the trees down, in a circle spreading outwards from a point that seems not particularly special. She’s about to ask, but Anders walks up to a stump with an axe lodged in it, braces a foot against the stump and pulls the axe loose. He hefts it, looking around thoughtfully before choosing a target. And then. He chops down a tree.

It takes longer than it does, or rather, time bends around it oddly; the tree crashes to the ground but when he’s moved on to the next it just vanishes. He cuts down three before he pauses, breathing hard and looking up at her with the ghost of a smile. “Did you want to help?”

“What?” But she realises there’s an axe in her hand. “Oh-h! I didn’t mean--”

“Go ahead. If you want.”

It’s harder than it looks, or maybe it’s because she’s never cut down a tree before; the bark is like stone, the axe just bouncing off, and it jars up her arm all the way to the shoulder.

“Ow!”

The sound of Anders’ laughter makes her turn, ready to scowl at him, but there’s something in the relaxed way he grins that makes it less mocking. “Some wood-maiden you are,” he says, arching an eyebrow. 

She huffs mist at him. “I’ve never cut down a tree before. How many trees have you cut down? In the world, I mean, not here.”

“A dozen, maybe.” He shrugs, comes over. “When I was a child. Before the Templars came. You’ve barely scratched it,” he adds, inspecting the bark of her tree. “There’s a trick to it, you know.”

“There usually is, to everything.”

He opens his mouth, holding out a hand, and then something strange happens to his expression. “I forget, sometimes, that you’re a girl. A woman, I mean.”

Merrill frowns, kicking at the snow. “Oh? Women can’t cut down trees, then?”

“No, no, of course I didn’t … but I was going to offer to show you how. And then I remembered.”

“You’re not making any sense,” she complains, and he laughs, and she’s never heard him laugh like this, so open. “A-anders! Stop it!”

“No, it’s not you, it’s … Andraste’s knickers, it’s good to _feel_ something. Do you know?”

“No?” He’s still not making any sense. “I feel things all the time. Don’t you?”

Anders sighs, closing his eyes and leaning back against a tree. “Not like this. Not when he’s around.”

“Do … you mean Hawke?”

“Oh, no. No, I meant,” and he makes a face. “They’re talking again. Hawke _talks_ to him when I’m sleeping. I think … maybe not just talk. I don’t know.”

Merrill opens her mouth to ask him to go on, but a shadow falls across his face and he frowns.

"He's coming. You should go."

"But--"

"No," Anders says turning his back on her and lifting his axe as though... "You have to _go_. Go now, because--"

The Fade _tightens_. Merrill feels it, feels the way the woods thicken and stretch, and the weight of it is enough to make her flee, flitting out of there and into the safe space between dreams.

In the morning Anders says nothing over breakfast, nothing to indicate that he remembers, but he's a mage and she _knows_ he does. 

"Finished with the honey?" he asks, and she offers him the pot. He doesn't look up. She doesn't know how to ask so she doesn't, but she knows. They both know.

* * *

"... and I don't want to hear about this again, all right?"

The recruits nod, shamefaced, so Carver takes pity on them and lets them go despite Barker's scowl. "You were too easy on them," Barker says once the door's closed, but Carver just gives him a 'says you' look and leans his chair back on two legs.

"They snuck out after curfew to get pissed in a storage closet. It's nothing."

"It's against the _rules_."

Carver snorts. "Like you never broke the rules." But then-- "Holy _shit_... you never did. Did you?" He cycles through everything he remembers about Barker and then he grins. "You _never fucking did_."

"You say that like it's a criticism," Barker grumbles, brow pulling down over his stupid nose.

"It _is_. Maker, you're such a stick."

"A _what_?"

"A stick-in-the-mud. Fuck, Barks, did you ever even prank anyone?"

Barker's frown is impressive. "Pranks are dangerous and humiliating. The only prank I ever ... well. I never meant to prank you, but I let it happen and," but he trails off, looking wretched, and Carver remembers.

"Don't guilt up over it." Carver shrugs. It was so long ago. "Hey, I'm alive, right? And ... we're okay, aren't we?"

"I wish I could go back and ... warn you sooner." He looks so haunted. It's so silly.

"Wouldn't have listened to you, anyway. Not back then." Because, though Carver doesn't say it aloud, they had hated each other at the time. 

Barker makes a face. "Still."

"Forget about it." Carver lets his chair settle onto the floor, and he pokes at the tablet with Barker's day-plan on it. Carver's day-plan, really, Barker just makes it and etches it out. "Hey." Carver waits for Barker to meet his eye. "So. This afternoon?"

"The Knight Captain wants you to submit recommendations for knighthood," Barker says, transitioning smoothly back into his particular kind of efficiency. "A lot of writing. Do you want a hand?"

" _Fuck_ yeah. Yes, please." Not just because Barker has better handwriting but because, damn it, sometimes Carver can't put things into words. Sometimes? Most times. Barker's so much better at it.

They settle in, hash out notes for a report, and then Barker takes him through the draft of it line by line. Carver agrees with everything Barker says because, well, obvious reasons. Before they're done, though, Barker takes the half-written parchment and puts it away. "You have Harrowing duty at the bell."

Fuck. He'd forgotten. How could he forget? "Okay, okay ... shit."

"All right, ser?"

Carver looks away from Barker's concerned-face. "Yeah, it's fine."

_Maker._

He meets Paxley on the first step to the upper floors. "All right, Pax?"

Paxley takes a deep breath, squares himself. "Good enough, Ferelden."

They go up. Paxley seems nervous, but Carver thinks it might be because he knows. Because. It's Paxley, and he always finds things out. Like the reason they keep putting him up for Harrowing, and it's not fair but it's the way it's done. They did the same thing to Carver, the same to Barker, the same to Ruvena and Hugh and Thessaly (Maker rest him).

 _You don't get out of Harrowing duty until you kill one of them_ , and Carver knows he can't say it, even though Paxley would _never_ slay an apprentice just to prove himself, but ... there are rules. Some of them are important.

Carver touches Paxley's arm, ducks his head to squint. "You okay?"

" _Fine_ ," Paxley insists, though his mouth ... "I'm fine. It's Charelle today, right?"

Carver doesn't know. Maker _fuck_ , he doesn't even know. "Come on," he says, and he holds open the door.

The apprentice goes under easy enough and then it's just waiting. Paxley watches, as he should, and Carver goes over his schedule for the next day; Knight Captain then the training yard then meeting with Edith and Rochard because the incident with Merrick inspired tighter restrictions on the apprentices, which is such bullshit. Rochard's okay, if you approach him right, even though Carver's pretty sure he's one of Meredith's (because there's a line in the sand with the Lieutenants; Rochard, Hamish, and Ninian on one side and Tristram, Nottely, and Damia on the other, it's so obvious). He'll ask Keili to sit in. She's been making progress with Merrick, winding him down into a tight coil that can be wound out again as necessary. If he can keep it up he'll make it, Carver's pretty sure, even Selwyn said so. So. After that he has voluntary confession with Sebastian (which he can skip, honestly, he'll send a recruit in the morning) and then there's Alistair and then ... dinner? And he has to finish that report on the potential knights, though frankly there are only Wertold and Keran deserving of it. Is he biased? He can't be sure. Still--

The apprentice (Charelle?) sits up. She's stiff but that's not out of the ordinary, and Carver looks to Paxley to see what he does.

Paxley glances at her, shifts his shoulders, and says, "She's fine. She's good."

"Pax," Carver chides, feeling like an arsehole. "You need to _look_."

And Paxley glares at him. "I _looked_. She's _fine_."

Carver can't. It's not-- "Let me," he says, stepping in, and Charelle flinches, blooms, billowing out into an abomination, a _demon_ and then 

she reaches down and

rips out Paxley's throat.

Carver

_no no no Maker please no_

draws his sword, and

 _oh my Maker fucking_ please _oh_

someone casts an ice spell, and then a glyph blossoms on the stone floor and

_please PLEASE no_

Carver ducks in and sinks his sword deep, tears it up and through and then it comes down again, hacking at a twitching corpse and

_beg you_

then it's done, it's done, and Carver's on his knees, trying to put torn flesh back together with his hands but

_please_

he can't.

He pulls away when the Healer says, because _of course_ , and _maybe_ , but when the Healer looks back at him, her face blank with the truth Carver can't, he can't ...

He has seen this, someone trying desperately to piece together the parts of someone they cared about, but Anders isn't here, Selwyn isn't here, _Merrill_ isn't here and he doesn't have anything to use in this, is useless, such a pathetic waste of flesh and bone, and he cannot hold it in.

Pax.

They drag him off. Paxley's eyes are cold by then, cold and glazed, so Carver doesn't resist. Done. So done. Everything is--

"Hawke!"

He stops. There's blood on his gauntlets. He can smell it, everywhere, and his stomach heaves and then empties onto the floor.

"Are you all right?"

No. No, not when ... there are two mounds. Someone has covered them both in cloth but he _knows_. His mouth tastes of sick and he spits it out, thick and rank, and oh, Maker, please...

"Drink this." 

Someone is in his face with a cup of water, someone in armour, it's ... Hugh, he thinks, yeah, Hugh pale and wretched and Carver can't help himself, "Pax, oh fuck, I didn't know, but..."

"You're okay," Hugh whispers, but he sounds anything but, white-faced and goggle-eyed, gripping Carver's armour and trying to hold him up. "You're okay. I ... shit. Shit!"

"No, I'm not, not even..." 

The stink of death hits his nose again and he gags, and Hugh hauls him up, drags him out into the fresh air outside, and then through a gateway and onto a patch of wet grass, muttering the whole time, "Fuck, Maker, _fuck_ , Maker..."

What has he done? 

Everything, all of it, what was ... if this is ... except ... and ...

Cool hands come up under his chin, familiar eyes tracing his face, full of concern. "Hawke."

He takes a breath, and it feels like gravel in his lungs. "Selwyn."

The coil of magic is gentle enough that it curls into him before he can protest, sapping his limbs, running him dry. "I have you. It's all right."

"It's not," he insists, feeling the strength go out of him and, oh, he should fight this, should drag it out of him, but it's too late, he's caught in Selwyn's net. "I'm _not_." _Don't_ , he thinks, begs, but it's too late, Selwyn has him in thrall and--

"Is he all right?" Hugh, more concerned than Carver's ever heard him, voice shaking like leaves in a high wind.

"I ... no, but ... yes. He'll be fine."

"What did you _do_?"

"Calmed him. Isn't that what you wanted? Maker, don't you dare blame me for this."

"No. No, I ... sorry, I just. Oh fuck." Hugh steps back, the clatter of his boots harsh against the stone of the gateway. "I don't know what I ... I should tell Cullen. I _should_ , he ... he'll hear about it anyway."

"No." Carver stands up; tries to, anyway, and mostly succeeds though it's Selwyn under his arm that makes it work. "I'll do it."

He blinks. Everything swims into focus. They're in the garden (where Paxley and him used to sit and talk shit and throw rocks at nothing, don't think) and Selwyn is in front of him, Hugh behind him, and Keran behind Hugh staring over Hugh's shoulder, and Carver needs to pull it the _fuck_ together.

"I'm okay," he says. 

Selwyn shakes his head. "You need to sit down."

"I'm FUCKING okay," he insists, and they all step back, all of them, and the shame of it crashes over him like a wave. "I'm ... it's not," but it is, it is, and they all know it. 

Pax.

"I'm okay," he says, but this time he doesn't expect any of them to believe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.


	11. Chapter 11

Standing in front of the Knight Commander takes effort. Carver can't even look at her, just tells the story to the floor, and he feels so numb.

"It was my fault," he says, because he has to, because it _was_.

Cullen shifts at Carver's side, and Carver can't look at him either but he can feel his Captain's concern, has felt the weight of it from the moment he said the words, "Paxley's dead," in Cullen's office and Cullen lurched out of his chair, his face wrecked with what must have been disappointment. No anger, though, just this painful look that made everything worse and that Carver could not bear.

"Knight Commander," Cullen says, quiet but firm. "I do not believe that Ser Carver acted in any way contrary to his duties as an officer. Ser Paxley's death and the death of Apprentice Charelle are regrettable, of course," and Carver hates the way he says it, hates how _easily_ the words come out, "but if you hear the testimony of Mages Odille and Yusef then perhaps you will consider it ... an unfortunate but unavoidable tragedy."

Unfortunate. _Pax is dead._ It is unfortunate. _Maker._

Meredith says nothing, taps her gauntleted fingers on her desk in a sharp tattoo. Carver can't argue with Cullen now, not in front of her, but the urge to do so comes over him like a fever. _It was_ my _fault, mine, how could you think it wasn't?_

"I do not care for what the _mages_ might say." The Knight Commander sounds cold but so she should. Carver braces himself, because this time, this time it won't be suspension of privileges and laundry duty, this time ... he can't imagine. Whatever it is, though, _he deserves it_. "Knight Corporal Carver acted as expected. A mage failed her Harrowing and was disposed of with minimal collateral damage. Well done, Ser Carver. You are to be commended for swift action under duress. Perhaps it should be announced. Cullen?" 

What?

"I ... do not believe that is wise, Commander. There are factors--"

 _What?_

"I'm certain there are." Meredith leans forward, leaning her weight on her elbows, and if Carver could hardly look at her before now he cannot look away. "I imagine it was difficult for you, Ser Carver. But know this: Ser Paxley was weak. I will not abide weakness in my Gallows. Perhaps it would have been better never to have knighted him, but it was done. The mistake lies there. Do you disagree, Cullen?"

The Knight Captain looks solemn. "I am uncertain, Knight Commander."

Oh. That's terrible. Carver knows he lobbied so hard for it, for Paxley, and now ... _Was that when I killed him? That was months ago._

"Of course you are." Her mouth twists in distaste. "Do not let this weaken you, Ser Carver. You are a Templar. Your strength lies in your focus. Remain vigilant." And then she dismisses them, as if it was none of it important at all.

Carver stops in the hall, feet heavy and useless. "Ser."

Cullen pauses, glancing at the knights on duty. "Hawke?"

"I ... why? It wasn't ..."

"Not here," Cullen says quietly. He catches Carver's arm, escorting him down the corridor, and Carver is too weak to resist. 

People are looking at him, he's certain, each of them accusing him and he knows he deserves it. He can't meet their eyes, can't stand it, and the relief of being shut up again in Cullen's office is like coming up for air.

"Hawke," Cullen starts, and then he falters, hands coming up to wrap firm and sure around Carver's pauldrons. "My _knight_."

It's unbearable. " _Ser_. It was my fault, ser, I ... I don't know what," but Cullen shakes his head, and his face is so...

"Do not torture yourself. Carver, please. Will you look at me?" Carver cannot refuse his Captain, even though the effort is terrible. Cullen opens his mouth, and he's all over concern and Carver _does not deserve it_. "The Knight Commander was right to remind you that you acted as you should, in the only way you could. And ... I would that you not blame yourself too harshly, though I know ... The loss of a friend must weigh on you heavily, but the fault is _not yours_. Do you understand?"

"How isn't it?" The way Cullen is _looking_ at him. It's all wrong, why isn't he angry? "I got my best friend killed because I ... because I knew he wasn't ... he was _struggling_ and I _let_ him, because I didn't think ... because I was too fucking stupid to do anything about it!" 

The Knight Captain doesn't even flinch, just closes his eyes and shakes his head, hands still on Carver's shoulders, and when he opens his eyes again they are _so sad_. "You made a mistake. And the cost is grave. But I do not blame you. And believe me when I say that I understand your grief. I have made my own mistakes, and carried the weight of them like boulders. When Isaak--" but there's a knock and he breaks off, grimacing, and lets go of Carver to yank open the door. Carver sees him hesitate, nod, and then he steps away.

It's Ruvena. And Barker and Margitte, and Hugh behind them looking defiant. Margitte's face is wet, her eyes swollen, and Ruvena is white as a sheet, but Barker might be the worst because he looks right at Carver with this hollow expression, like he's been emptied out, like he has nothing left, and his mouth is weak and awful.

No. Carver takes a breath. His lungs feel like sand. He _can't_.

But Ruvena touches his arm, just a scrape of her gauntlets against his plate, and she's tight-lipped and furious, but _not with him_.

"Knight Captain? Paxley ... we wanted to know what happened."

Cullen breathes out, leans back against his desk, and clasps his hands in his lap. "I am sure Ser Hugh has already told you everything he knows."

Ruvena shrugs, shifting her feet but not backing down. "Hugh said Hawke was up in front of the Knight Commander. And that Pax ... that he's dead. And I went to the infirmary but they said I couldn't see and," she bares her teeth like a cornered mabari. "So we wanted to know, ser. About the Harrowing."

Cullen nods, solemn as a Chantry brother. "Very well." 

He doesn't tell them much, but every word is a lance under Carver's ribcage. Margitte is crying quietly, which makes Carver feel worse. Ruvena just listens, jaw tight, mouth like a knife-blade, nodding jerkily whenever Cullen pauses to choose his words.

When he's done, Ruvena nods again, sharp and stiff. "What are you going to do to Hawke?"

"He won't be punished," Cullen says, and Ruvena sags, as if that's all she cares about, and it's so wrong Carver wants to scream.

"And what happens now?"

Cullen sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, and he looks so _weary_. "There will be a memorial service for Ser Paxley tomorrow. Meanwhile, you will all go about your duties as necessary."

It's not enough. There should be more, and Carver opens his mouth because ... “His mother,” he says, and it’s an effort but he does it because no-one else seems to be going to. “He always ... on free days, he’d visit his mother.” Everyone is looking at him but he tries not to see it.

Cullen nods. “Very well. I will have someone inform her.”

Carver can’t help it. “I’ll do it.”

Cullen gives him a long look, a Knight Captain look, sizing him up. "I do not think--"

"Ser." Carver needs to. " _Please_."

Cullen hesitates, but then he nods. “As you insist, Knight Corporal.”

He can’t go at once. All Paxley’s things have to be gathered up, neatly put together by one of the Tranquil into an unexpectedly small bundle. There’s the widows-and-orphans payout, and it’s not much, not enough, but Carver signs for the purse and tucks it into the bundle because at least it’s _something_.

No-one knows where Paxley’s mother lives, but they pool what they do know, and they're all so solemn but not one of them says a word against Carver which makes it all somehow worse. Ruvena says he always took the stairs to Lowtown, always on his own. Hugh reckons he said something about being from Tantervale originally, but that they moved to Kirkwall when his father died, and Margitte remembers how his mother had hated being so near the alienage because everyone dropped their clutter in the streets.

And in the ledger they find out that his first name was ‘Simon’.

"I'm going with you," Ruvena tells him, and when he opens his mouth to argue she pins him with this look, full of rage and heartbreak. "Don't even think I won't."

"Rue," Carver says, and he wants to touch her but he doesn't dare. "I can't. If you come, I ... fuck, Rue, I just ... I need to do this. If you come, I don't think I can."

She looks hurt. And then she scowls, stalks away, and leaves him to himself.

It ... matters, but he refuses to think about it. _Not now. Later._

Carver takes the bundle and asks around, starting near the alienage and working his way outwards. “Mistress Paxley, from Tantervale. Her son Simon joined the Templars,” he says, over and over again, but no-one knows anything and every refusal is like a pinprick, slowly bleeding him out.

Eventually, someone does know something. “Simon Paxley?” The woman is older than him but young enough to have two small children hugging her ankles. “Why? Who’s asking?”

“I’m a friend,” Carver says, and her eyes narrow suspiciously.

“Oh, aye. Friends who don’t even know what they’re asking about are _good_ friends, I’m sure.”

It stings. “He never talked much about home. But I’m looking for his mother. Can you help?” He thinks about offering her a coin for it, but she just shrugs, and makes a vague gesture down the alley.

“I don’t know where she is, but Granny Alliss might. She lives at the end, past the rubble.”

He thanks her, wonders what ‘rubble’ will mean, and heads down the alley. It’s one of the poorer parts of Lowtown, which is poor enough as it is. There’s laundry strung up between the houses but it’s mostly all the same dull grey, and patched, and smelly as though no-one here can afford soap. They probably can’t. There are a lot of children, though, running about barefoot and shouting. And here and there someone’s planted a bit of greenery, by the doorsteps and along the walls. Or maybe they’re just pretty weeds.

He soon finds out what she meant by ‘rubble’. A whole section of the street has been burnt out, blackened and fallen in on itself. It looks old, too old to be a result of the Qunari battle. And it’s just been _left_ there, as if no-one cares.

He stops a weary woman who is probably younger than she looks, and asks what happened.

“Abomination,” she says, and he should have known. “Tore the place down, years ago.”

“And no-one’s done anything about it?”

She snorts. “Who would? No-one cares.”

He frowns, but he doesn’t have anything to say to that. “I’m looking for Simon Paxley’s mother. They moved here from Tantervale, I think. He joined the Templars.”

“Why?” and she glares at him. “What’s it you think he’s done, then? I won’t say anything against our Simon, I _won’t_.”

That’s a surprise. “You know him?” _Knew him_.

“We all _know_ him.” She scowls. “I won’t tell you nothing.”

She is, however, telling him things, even if she doesn’t know it. “I don’t mean any harm, miss,” he says. “He and I ... we were recruits together. He was my _friend_.”

She’s not stupid. “Was? What happened, then?”

Carver can’t tell her, he just can’t. It’s not right. “Please, I have to see his mother, can you help me?”

And no, she’s not stupid. Her mouth makes a little ‘o’. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“I have to speak to his mother.”

She shakes her head, mouth pursing up unhappily. “Well, you can’t.”

It’s frustrating. “I was told that Granny Alliss could tell me where she is.”

“Probably,” she says, and she shakes her head. “For all the good it’ll do you.”

She does, however, point out the bench in the sun where the old women sit, and Carver tries again, and the weight of asking this so many times makes him hoarse and hollow. “Please, messere, I’m looking for Simon Paxley’s mother. Do you know where I can find her?”

So she tells him.

The catacombs are huge but he finds the place in the end. Just a jar in a wall with a plaque that says ‘Irena Paxley’ and nothing else. It's dusty, old, with a few dry violets hanging over the sides of a lyrium phial. It's been here for years.

All this time. All this time, by himself, every free day without fail. “I’m going to visit my mother,” he’d say, cheerful as could be and he never _said_ and Carver never _asked_ and no-one _knew_.

How could they not _know?_

Carver stares at the plaque and his chest aches, and he has to do _something_ otherwise it’s all worthless.

“Mistress Paxley,” he starts, and has to stop to clear his throat, feeling foolish talking to a wall, but not as foolish as he would _not_ talking to _this_ wall. “Mistress Paxley.” That was better. “I regret to inform you that your son, Simon Paxley of the Order of Knights Templar, has fallen in the execution of his duty.” The official words. “He was a worthy Knight, strong in his faith, and he will be sorely missed.”

But it’s not enough. “He was a good man, and my friend,” and his voice cracks because, oh, _Pax_...

He’ll do better, he tells himself. He’ll _be_ better. Like Pax, who was never like _him_ , never hard enough or brutish enough to cut anyone down, but was always ... Pax. 

_Paxley. Andraste watch over you. Maker protect you. I'm sorry._

And if he weeps, there's no-one there to see.

* * *

The memorial service is brutal. After, Carver shuts himself in his office, latches the door, and pretends he isn't there when people knock. Maker, he doesn't know what to do with himself. People kept coming up to him, saying they're sorry and telling him how much they liked Paxley, and Carver couldn't stand it. What is he supposed to do with this? He can't even deal with his own misery, much less _theirs_.

It gets late, though, and he's about to make an attempt to sneak out to his room and hide in _there_ , when there's a furious pounding on the door.

"Fucking _void_ , Ferelden! Open up or I'll bust it down!" It sounds like Hugh, and Carver really doesn't want to see him. "Count of ten, and then it's not my fault if your door needs replacing. One. Two. Three." Carver thinks he won't do it, though, but then he makes a frustrated noise, and says, "Fuck this." And something heavy hits the door, hard.

"Andraste's arse!" Carver stumbles across the room and fumbles open the latch. When he pulls the door open Hugh looks surprised, then pleased, then weirdly smug.

"I knew you would," he says, and then he stabs a finger into the centre of Carver's chest. "Oi. None of this. We're all waiting, you know."

"Waiting for what?"

"You, dickhead. Come on." He backs up, watching Carver intently, but Carver holds his ground. Hugh frowns. "You can't hide in there forever. Come on, _Knight Corporal_. We need you. Come _on_." When Carver hesitates Hugh makes a face that is ... unlike him, honestly. "Nobody blames you. You know that, right?"

"What?"

"Barker thinks you're guilting yourself up. He thinks you need 'space'." His scowl says how he feels about that. " _I_ think you need a drink. Anyway. Just," and he holds out a hand, "you should be with us. Okay?"

Carver isn't sure that it is, but he's pretty sure Hugh won't let him alone until he goes. So he does.

They're all in the room Ruvena and Margitte share, both girls and Barker and Keran and Wertold. And Selwyn, which is unexpected. And completely against the rules. Just like the crate of wine they've cracked open, so ... yeah, if they get caught they're all in trouble, Carver probably more than the rest.

Selwyn is scrunched up against Ruvena's side on one of the beds, and he raises the bottle he's holding. "Ser Carver! Do join us."

None of them, not _one_ of them looks unhappy to see him. In fact ... they're all drunk already, sloppy and just fucking _drunk_ , and when Selwyn pats the bed Carver realises there's a space for him and he ... sits down, accepts the bottle Selwyn pushes into his hand, and takes a good deep pull of it before handing it off to Wertold.

"Okay," Ruvena says, kicking Keran with one stockinged foot. "Your go."

Keran takes a breath, and he looks nervous, sat down there on the floor, but somehow ... "When we were recruits, Pax and I used to sneak around the wall in the bathing room to perve on you girls in the bath."

Everyone laughs, even Margitte. Hugh, who's pulling another bottle out of the crate, smacks Keran across the back of the head. "Fuck, don't tell them _that_! We all did bloody that."

"I didn't," Barker argues, but his face is caught somewhere between a smile and his serious face, and it looks so weird. Drunk too, Carver guesses, and he thinks he's going to have to work to catch up.

"Really?" Margitte is curled up in the corner of the bed Carver thinks might be her own, with her feet in Barker's lap. She's holding a half-empty bottle, which is unusual, and then she says, "Ruvena and Ellen used to do the same to you."

Barker looks so shocked it's hilarious, and Ruvena giggles, snuggling down into Selwyn's shoulder. "Didn't you know? What, did you think the gap in the wall only went one way?"

"I thought _someone_ in this place had some decency," Barker argues, but when Margitte offers him a drink out of her bottle he takes it, wipes his mouth, and frowns. "All right. One time, Paxley dared me to put salt in the Knight Captain's teapot."

Ruvena nearly chokes on her wine. "That was _you_?"

"No, it was Hugh in the end. But I was on duty in Cullen's office and saw the look on his face. Maker, I thought I'd die."

"Yeah, that was the plan," Hugh crows, and Barker scowls at him and it's ...

Nice. 

"Remember how he'd fart in the Chantry?" Hugh shakes his head, and someone groans. "In the middle of a sodding sermon about 'reticence' or whatever, he'd just nudge you and let one go, and then you'd laugh, and _you'd_ be the one that got in trouble."

"And he'd read romances inside his books," Ruvena chimes in, slopping wine up her arm and not caring. "When you were supposed to be doing ... history or tactics or whatever, and it was annoying because if the teacher asked him a question he always fucking _knew_."

"He did the reading beforehand," Barker says. He's leaned up against the wall, watching them all from under half-lidded eyes. "He liked to be prepared."

"Nah, he was just a know-it-all." Hugh makes a face. "The Chant, the Rule of the Order, the Histories, anything. Bloody show-off."

Margitte shifts, and her smile is delicate, her eyes still so red Carver feels bad just for looking at her. "He did like romances. When you'd all go drinking and he was still a recruit, we used to read Orlesian romances out loud together."

"I remember that," Keran says, glancing up at her. "He'd do the voices. He did a good old lady voice, all high and wobbly."

"You read romances _out loud_?" Hugh snorts. "Pax taking one for the team, again."

"Oh, so it wasn't _me_ taking one for the team?" Margitte protests, gesturing dangerously with the bottle she's sharing with Barker. "Did you think I wanted to stay back?"

"You don't drink," Hugh argues; Margitte just looks at him and lifts the bottle to her mouth. "Well, we didn't know."

She swallows, makes a face. "You never asked."

Into the sudden awkward silence, Wertold clears his throat. "Paxley taught me to parry," he says, shy and hesitant, and Ruvena nods so hard Carver thinks her head might come off.

" _Fuck_ , yeah. He was ... Maker, he had good form. D'you remember, Ferelden, how he worked on his disarm?" She blinks at him, eyes glossy with wine, and Carver tries to speak, though his throat feels rusty and dry.

"No ... I guess so?" Carver remembers him flubbing strikes, but...

Hugh snorts. "Yeah, 'course not. Cos it was _your_ disarm he was copying."

"What?"

"Oh!" And Ruvena sits up, dislodging Selwyn who wavers for a moment before settling against Carver's shoulder. "That's right. Remember how pissy he was when Hawke just hoiked his sword out of his hand that first day? Maker, I'd forgotten."

Carver doesn't know, but the others seem to. Hugh snorts, flicks a finger in Ruvena's direction. "Like you weren't pissy too. I remember." His eyes cut up, catch Carver's, and then he smirks. "He always liked you best. For some reason. Never was what I thought, but ... we'll never know, now."

Barker punches Hugh in the shoulder, and Hugh protests, but all Carver can think is that they never will know, not for sure, not anything about Pax. Not now.

"Mmmm," and Selwyn has been very quiet, maybe because he's the lone robe in a room full of Templars, but he reaches across the gap between the beds, between Keran and Wertold on the floor, and takes Hugh's bottle before Hugh can protest. " _I_ remember when Ser Paxley asked me how things went between men." He smirks, takes a drink, and hands the bottle to Carver with a wry glance. "He made such _faces_ when I told him. Didn't much like the sound of it. But he said he _might_ , if it ever came up."

"Don't be daft," Hugh scoffs, watching his bottle. "Pax liked girls good enough."

Ruvena snorts. "He _did_. But ... doesn't have to be _just_ girls."

And now they're all looking at Carver, all except Margitte who is staring at her hands with an intensity that makes Carver ache. "He liked girls," Carver says, suddenly realising something he hadn't ever considered before. "Pax was always... he just wanted to know things. Everything."

Margitte has pulled up her knees, and she's crying again, and Barker puts an arm around her, whispering something in her ear that seems to help.

Carver feels wretched, and he tries to distract everyone. "Pax ... was the first friend I ever had who didn't care. About me being Fereldan. Or my brother. He never cared about stupid things like that. He always ... if he liked you he liked you, and ... he let you know." He takes a breath. "He was the best man I've ever known."

"Pax for king," Ruvena says, reaching over Selwyn to offer Carver her fist, and he thumps it with his own, because... "Best of us. May he reign forever."

The manic mood dies down after that, and Keran begs off, takes Wertold with him. Carver is about to offer to walk Selwyn back to the mage quarters but Barker beats him to it. Hugh sighs, drags himself to his feet and asks if he'll get any credit for getting rid of the bottles. Ruvena laughs at him, but Margitte says thank-you, and then Carver finds himself helping because, well, of course.

After, Hugh walks with Carver back to his room. Staggers, really; they're both pissed and Carver feels open and loose and good, even though he's almost sure he shouldn't. At Carver's door, Hugh leans over to grab his arm and shake him. 

"Hey," Hugh says, blinking at him in the careful, earnest way drunks do. "Better than moping alone, right?"

"Yeah." Carver thinks about it, and nods. "Thanks."

"No fucking problem, Ferelden. Get some sleep." He wobbles away, and Carver tries not to think about how wrecked they'll all be in the morning.

He goes in, sits on his bed, and tries to take off his boots. He's got one off and the other half undone before it all comes crashing back.

 _Pax_. Oh, fuck.

Nothing's changed. It's all been a distraction, and he _hates_ himself for it, hates how easily he pushed these feelings away. Paxley's still dead. He's never coming back, and they can tell stories about him into the dawn but it won't fix anything. Carver feels like a monster for forgetting, for pretending, for ignoring the truth. Andraste's mercy, what's wrong with him?

He kicks off his last boot, crawls up his bed, and tries not to think but thoughts ricochet around in his head like ... it doesn't really matter what they're like, because with his eyes closed everything spins nastily. He blinks his eyes open, tries to focus, and the effort makes him feel sick.

Maker. He's not even that drunk. Just sick and, and _tired_ , he's so fucking tired, of everything. _Why'd you have to die, Pax?_ But it wasn't Paxley's fault. _Why'd I_ let _you?_ He shouldn't have, he should have _known_ , should have done _something_ , anyway. His eyes keep closing all by themselves, and he should get out of his clothes, he really should, but all he wants is to pull the covers over his head and just ... wallow. That's what his mother calls it, when he's down like this, when he was down after Bethany, after everything in his life fell apart.

_Bethy... Fuck, I miss you._

She'd get it, he's sure, she'd take his hand and they'd just lie still, curved toward one another with the tenuous connection of their flesh between them, but they'd both know and neither of them would need to say a damn thing. Oh, how he _wishes_. But. Bethany's never coming back, and Paxley's never either, and if he could have just one thing it would be the two of them alive and talking to him and ...

Bethany would have liked Paxley, Carver's sure. Maker, how he misses--

He looks up from the rock he's sitting on to see the dawn, pink and purple and apricot. It's gorgeous. He's missed the dawn over the fields, has missed how crisp and cool the air could be in the morning. There’s a hand on his shoulder and he wishes it were his father, just for a moment, but it can’t ever be.

“Is your heart broken, big brother?”

That she’d even say it. Only a shard of an afternoon makes him older, and she always said the difference was that they took him out of the oven too soon. Half-baked, she said. “Bethy.” She’s unblemished and fresh. “I wish you were older.”

“You can’t imagine me older.” Both hands on his shoulders, rubbing firm through the woollen. “Big _brother_. You could make it right, you know.”

“I don’t.”

“Could make it right for _him_ , and for me. If you wanted.”

She tips into his lap, arms circling his neck, and she _beams_. She’s his _twin_ , two of them sharing a _womb_ , and he has no defences against this. “ _Bethany_. I’d give you everything.”

“You _can_ , if you’d only do it.” But she smirks as though it’s the best joke. “Give me everything.”

His little sister. _Oh, no. Bethy, forgive me._ “Don’t think so,” and he tumbles her to the ground, turns away, does not _care_.

“Oh.” The voice is deeper now, but still so merry. “But she was your sister. Did you not love her?”

“More than any,” Carver says. It’s true, and his defences are down, so he can’t fight. “You too, you know.”

Paxley shrugs, sits on the rock and settles against him, looking out. "So, why do you resist?"

"It wouldn't be real. Pax, as if you’d ever ask me that.”

“You’re so lonely. All alone in that big stubborn head of yours. I just want to help.”

“You can’t, Pax. You’re _dead_.”

“I could make you forget that.” The eyes in that face are Paxley’s, the voice is Paxley’s, even that moustache. “Wouldn’t you like to forget? I could make you happy, for just a little while.”

Carver mustn’t, but … “How?”

Paxley’s grin is like the sun. He leans in, hand high on Carver’s arm, and the warmth of his palm spreads out through Carver’s flesh, pushing everything bad away. “There’s a girl called Peaches asking after you, back up at the house.”

It’s almost right. “You mean, asking after Garrett.”

“ _No_ , I mean _you_. Though, she’s pretty. I could just go talk to her myself, if you liked.” Paxley stands up, dusts his hands on his trousers, waggling his eyebrows with melodramatic suggestion. “No trouble at all.”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Carver grouses, though he doesn’t mean it.

“Race you?” Paxley backs up, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Last one there’s a rotten egg. First one gets to walk her home.”

“It doesn’t work like that, you ass,” but Paxley’s already taken off at a run through the field, and, oh, he _wouldn’t_.

Carver chases him. It’s good. Everything’s going to be fine.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the word 'cunt' is used several times, just so you know.

“Starkhaven?” Carver stares at him, shock rippling through him like a blow. "Ser?"

The Knight Captain is grave and pale, as though this is a punishment for _him_ and not Carver. "It is for the best, Knight Corporal. You have ... the matter of Ser Paxley's death has been a trial for you. It seems logical that a change of environment would be beneficial."

"So you're shipping me off to _Starkhaven_?" It seems unreal, but ... well, this is happening. Apparently.

"Do you imagine this is easy for me?" 

Carver doesn't have it in him to care. "Easier than it is for _me_." But Cullen looks so upset by it that he tries to rein in his frustration. "Ser. Please. Don't send me away. I'll do better, I'll," he doesn't know, "I'll _be_ better, I swear it, I'll be whatever you want me to be, just _don't_."

And there, now Carver's hurt him, that wounded look is all Carver's _fault_. "I have made my decision, Knight Corporal. What I want you to be is the knight I know you are. And to obey me in this. It is for your own good."

Carver's heard that enough times, from Garrett, and his mother. Maker, from his _father_. "Ser." But, he is a knight of the fucking Order, not a child, so he squares his shoulders, fixes his gaze on a point just above Cullen's shoulder, and says, "As you say, ser."

The Knight Captain sighs, rubs his brow, and Carver refuses to care. "I have made arrangements for you to accompany Knight Lieutenant Tristram, who is returning to Starkhaven for personal reasons. He will mentor you in this. I hope he can be to you in all things as I have been. I hope you will be ... obedient for him. He is a fine officer, and deserves your every respect."

Tristram's all right, at least, a square bloke about Cullen's age who laughs loudly at jokes and has a reputation for being ruthless on recruits and moderate with mages. Still, in this moment Carver hates him. "Yes, ser."

Even not looking at him, Carver can see how this annoys Cullen, how his face twists with it. "Hawke. Please do not make this more difficult than need be."

"I'll do as I'm told, ser." Though, the thought that anyone could replace Cullen, and that Cullen would _abandon_ him like this, is sour as biting into a lemon. "I won't disgrace you further."

"You have never--" but Cullen breaks off, hands spread wide on the desk, and he shakes his head. "I have never been truly disappointed in you. I trust you will give me no reason to begin now."

"Ser." Carver feels wretched, and they don't have to do this, they _don't_ , so why? "Am I dismissed?"

Cullen takes a breath, mouth open as though there is more he wants to say, but then he nods. "Your duties are now largely confined to the arrangements necessary for departure, three days hence. The rest of your time is your own. You are dismissed."

It's like a dream. Not quite a nightmare, those are too sharp, but a bad dream where all his emotions are dulled down like the edge of an old knife, useless for anything. He goes to his office, sits, fiddles with a pen, and he thinks about the reports half-written, the plans he's had for Wertold and Keran, that he promised Selwyn another trip up to Hightown, that he owes Hugh three sovereigns, and Ruvena ... _Oh, fuck, Rue._

It's all so ... pointless but important. He has duties. He should see his mother. He really doesn't want to.

Still. His afternoon is free. _Pax would never forgive me if I didn't_. So he drags himself up, signs himself out, and takes the barge to Kirkwall proper.

The docks are busy, as always, and Lowtown is dirty, as always. The stink of it doesn't bother him like it used to, and he has to really look to see the refugees, the whores, the Coterie swaggering about as if they own the place. Which, really, they do. The walking dead, he used to think, but they aren't anymore, they're just ... Kirkwall-folk, in Kirkwall. Dirty, smelly, broken Kirkwall, and he'd never thought he'd be sad to leave it behind but ...

It's not Ferelden. It can never be Ferelden. Even Hightown is repugnant. He misses open sky and fresh air and the space to move around in without knocking into things. The fields, the forests, the rivers; Kirkwall has none of those, just dust and filth and misery at every turn. But somehow this terrible city has become home. Even the Gallows isn't the cesspit he'd always thought, and he'd never have wanted Bethany to end up there but still, if she had there'd be knights like him, and Cullen, and Barker, and Ruvena, and, and Paxley (Maker rest him) to look out for her. Selwyn and Keili, amongst the mages. She'd have made friends and learned things and they wouldn't have had to _run_ anymore.

Wouldn't have. Could have stayed. But now Carver has to leave again and it rankles.

At least this time it's not because Garrett picked the wrong fight at the wrong time.

Carver doesn't knock at at the door of the estate anymore, just goes in, and maybe that makes it his own fault.

Fenris is sitting on a bench in the entryway, waiting for Garrett probably. He stands up. He looks... good, honestly. Healthy, well-rested, nothing weighing heavy under his eyes. The edges of his markings stand out, though, almost green between the lyrium and his skin. His expression is blank. Carver hopes his own can match.

"Hawke," Fenris says. So flat. Like it’s nothing. Carver doesn't want to do this.

"Fenris. Waiting for my brother?" 

Fenris nods. Maker, why must he look so wholesome? "He requested me. And you, also?"

"No. No, I'm here for my mother."

Fenris sits. He knots his hands together at his knees, gauntlets interlacing, and Carver has nothing of importance to say. _Why must he look so?_

"I'll... tell Garrett you're waiting,"

Fenris nods; Carver goes in. (Why … it's not … for _fuck’s sake_ , Fenris.) The parlour door is open, no-one in there. The kitchen yields only Sandal, so happy to see him that Carver cannot easily tear himself away. Sandal offers him a rock; Carver takes it. He keeps all Sandal's rocks now, lines them up on a shelf beside the things Fenris gave him. Used to give.

Bodahn comes in to shoo him out of the kitchen. When Carver tells him Fenris is waiting Bodahn looks appalled, heads upstairs to see if Garrett needs any further reminder, but Carver goes up to his mother's room all himself while Bodahn is busy.

She pulls him immediately into a hug, but then ... her room is so _nice_. Smells good, all over lavender and rosemary, like a garden, and the windows are open and the Kirkwall breeze coming in is _sweet_. How lovely for her.

"Darling, are you all right?"

Still, he has to tell her. "Mother." He doesn't know where to start, and he should have brought her something, some flowers or, or a scarf or something, anything to make this better. 

She seems to have enough scarves and flowers, though, and he has nothing. So all he can do is tell her, and she listens, does not cry very much, has him promise to write.

That's it. She makes him take a packet of biscuits and cake, but she lets him go. He doesn't even have to argue.

He feels worse walking out than he did going in. Fenris is gone, Garrett gone, Merrill absent and Anders too and he takes a breath on the step, tries to centre himself but it's all... It's been nice, lately, coming back here from the Gallows. Good food and good wine and clean sheets on a pallet for him the nights he stayed late enough that Garrett insisted. Done, though, for now.

He never got to say goodbye to Lothering. He doesn't much feel like saying goodbye to Hightown, so he doesn't, just takes the stairs, and he doesn't look back.

* * *

Three days go by quickly. The first is over too soon and the second is all paperwork and fuss. A recruit is assigned to assist him. It’s Alistair, as it happens, who frowns a lot, opens his mouth a lot but closes it without saying a damn thing, just fetches and carries and helps Carver shove things into a trunk. But even Alistair hesitates over the shelf of trinkets Carver hasn’t yet thrown away.

“Do you want these, ser?” He’s holding a little statue, a bit of stone worked into the shape of a dog or a wolf or something. Maybe neither. Carver’s never really known.

Carver can’t decide. “Just chuck 'em. I don’t need them.”

“But you kept them,” and Alistair shrugs, cradling the little bit of stonework in one hand as though it’s precious. “Even if you don’t want them now, you might later.”

It’s too much. “Just shove them in a bag or something.” Alistair wraps them all up in a shirt and tucks them down the side of Carver’s trunk. It’s meant as a kindness, Carver decides, so when he unearths another of Fenris’ gifts, a bottle of wine they never got around to drinking, he gives it to Alistair. “Don’t get caught,” he warns, and Alistair grins, and fuck, he’s a handsome one. Carver tries to ignore it.

Before he goes Alistair stops in the doorway, and his frown is something Carver should ask about but he cannot summon the energy. “Ser.” He makes a face. “Carver.” He ignores propriety, as always, puts a hand on Carver’s shoulder and looks him right in the eye. “You know, I never thought I’d end up liking a man who punched me in the face.”

Carver can’t help it, his mouth just makes this shape, and if it’s not a smile then it’ll have to do. “Yeah. Same here.”

“I’m sorry you’re leaving. And I’m sorry about your friend. I had a friend once, who,” and he grimaces, and Carver _knows_. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. But I am sorry.”

“Thanks.” There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say, but suddenly he thinks-- “I know you don’t want to be here. I’d help you, if I knew how. But,” and he doesn’t know how to finish. “I’ll do what I can, when I come back.”

“ _Are_ you coming back?” He looks so uncertain that Carver realises he’s just been assuming that he will, that this is temporary and …. Cullen never said. Maybe this is forever. Oh, Maker.

“I don’t know. Not much of a promise, then, is it?”

Alistair shakes his head, amused and also another thing Carver can’t quite read. “I’ll hold you to it, when you do.”

The exchange leaves him wretched, long after Alistair’s gone. Still. They’ve announced his transfer now, it’s gone up on the board, so Carver has to present at dinner because it’s _how things go_.

Barker has saved him a seat at the knights’ table, Hugh and Keran across from him, and Pax-- 

There’s no Pax. It’s like a hole in the world, a space where he ought to be, and where nothing will ever be again. But Ruvena’s also missing, and when Carver finds out why he puts his spoon down, swallows his mouthful of fishy stew, and says, “What’s Rue got _laundry_ duty for?”

Hugh makes a face, eyes cutting up at him with some reluctance. “Insubordination.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Yelled at the Knight Captain.” He leans in, mouth thin and grim. “Reckoned he lied when he said he wasn’t going to punish you.”

Oh. Carver takes a deep breath, because … “It’s not a punishment,” he says carefully, though he can’t bring himself to believe it. “It’s .. he said it was for my own good.”

“Yeah. Rue _said_ he said that. Looks like she feels different, though.”

Carver does too, and a glance around the table shows that he’s not alone in that. But Cullen is his _captain_ , so he feels compelled to defend him. “The Knight Captain knows what he’s doing.”

“You sure?” 

Barker comes in to point at Hugh with his spoon. “Don’t question it.”

“Nah, I think we _should_ fucking question it,” Hugh argues, and for once Carver thinks he has a point. “Officers aren’t always right, right? Come _on_ , like you never think it.”

Barker hesitates, and then he hunches. “Don’t question it where anyone can hear,” he says, low and quiet, and Carver doesn’t know. They’re both right, but he thinks Barker’s trying to keep the peace while Hugh … has Carver changed so much, now, that _Hugh_ could come closest to how he feels?

Still, everyone hunkers down over their food, Keran as wide-eyed as a milkmaid at Satinalia. They’re good friends, really, none of them accusing him of anything, none of them hating on him even though he hates on himself for so much of this.

They finish up, Hugh taking Keran off for night patrols and Barker asking in a round-a-bout way if Carver wants to play stones but Carver really doesn’t.

He goes back to his room. His robes and his armour get hung up, his boots put aside, and he thinks, _Oh fuck_ , when he bothers to think, but he doesn’t want to, would rather just get drunk with his mates and _forget_ about how badly he’s done at _everything_.

Shit. Shitting …. shit. Starkhaven? He tries to remember what he knows of Starkhaven, but all of it is things Sebastian has told him, and that it’s a place Cullen sends knights who fail him.

Maker. Maybe, if he got up now and went to see him Cullen would reconsider. Maybe he’d take it back, maybe keep Carver. _And I’d do anything, anything he asked._ But, still. Carver _is_ a failure, isn’t he? Isn’t that all he’s ever been?

The door handle rattles, and just as he remembers that he didn't latch it the thing swings open. 

"Hey, Ferelden." She's stone-faced, angry, with her hair tousled around her head as though she's been knotting it up with her fingers. 

"Hey, Rue."

She comes in, shuts the door and throws the latch and looks him over for a bit before making a weak and uninterpretable gesture. "Thought you might like to talk."

"Do _you_ wanna talk?"

"Yeah." She sits next to him on the bed, leans her forearms on her knees, hands clasped together. Her hands are red and sore looking, worked too hard for too long in the laundry, and he knows it because he’s done it. "Can’t believe you’re just _going_ like this. Can’t believe … Pax. Now both of you. Maker _fuck_."

Carver doesn't know what to say. Another girl he might … Maker, he doesn’t even know. Put an arm around her, maybe hug her a bit, maybe kiss her hair and say something, anything, and it would be stupid and he'd regret it almost at once. But it's _Rue_ , and he _can't_. She already knows everything he'd try to say. So he doesn't say anything.

"This is fucked," she mutters, pulling her legs up under her until she's cross-legged on his blankets. "It's _so_ fucked, and no-one ... shit. Margie's broken. Can't even talk to her. Barker's trying but he's useless with things like this. Remember Thessaly?"

Carver nods. "I remember." Fuck, was it like this for Barker back then? No-one else _liked_ Thessaly, and Barker ... shit, they just left him all _alone_. What a bunch of selfish jerks they all were.

"I just ..." She sighs, deep and expressive. "It's not real. Tomorrow, when I wake up, Pax'll still be dead. This morning I forgot. Until I was half dressed and then ..." She shrugs, then her shoulders go down, and she's hugging herself and Carver just ... he reaches over, wraps an arm around her, hoping it might help, somehow. It must; she leans into him, turns her face into his neck. Maker, she smells like soap and sweat, but all of it is comforting. He puts his face in her hair and breathes in all the sour sadness of her. He kisses her hair because he needs to, and it's okay, but then she twists and her mouth is _right there_ , and he ducks down to meet her.

Oh. He hasn't kissed anyone in so long, hasn't kissed a girl since Isabela, and she's so soft, so _good_. She opens her mouth, makes small sounds but not bad sounds, and one of her hands is in his hair and he's wanted this, with someone, anyone, for what feels like forever. And with her, too, with her specifically because...

Fuck, it's _Rue_. 

He'd thought she'd be rough about it, but she isn't, just insistent, pushing her tongue into his mouth and then dragging her teeth over his lip. He groans, knows himself terrible, and his hand is caught in her shirt, fingers smoothing over one firm breast, and, merciful Andraste, are they doing this?

"Maker's balls, Ferelden," she mutters, shoving him back on the bed. "Why aren't you _bad_ at this? I always thought," but then she's in his mouth again, straddling him, and his hands don't know where to go on a woman so he kisses her hard as he dares, palms wrapped around her hips and it's not right but it's so _good_.

She's firm in ways Isabela was never, soft in ways Fenris couldn't be, and there's a moment of dissonance where he wishes she were either thing or _both_ , but then ... then he doesn't care anymore. It's Rue, and she's just _Rue_ , and he kisses his way across her jaw to bury his face in her neck, thumbs smoothing over her breasts and she _gasps_ and he thinks, _Yeah, fucking_ yeah _, just this._

She pulls away, sits up, and he's almost sure she's going to leave or call a stop to this or call a stop to this and _then_ leave, but instead she hauls his shirt out of his trousers and then her palms are flat on his belly, sliding up over his chest to ruck up his shirt. He lets her. What else would he do?

"Saw you," she says, eyes fixed on his bared skin. "In the baths. Fuck, I always wondered."

Her fingers are blunt and rough, and he really, really likes that. "What?"

She tugs his shirt up until he gets it, rolling his shoulders to help, and then she tosses the thing to one side. "What you'd do if I did this." And she licks him, a long line from his navel to his collarbone, and he can't help the noise that comes out of his mouth. She grins at him, and it's weird to see _that_ grin, right now, but it's in no way _bad_. "Yeah. Pretty much what I thought."

"Fucking _hell_ , Rue." He lifts a hand to run it down her front. He catches one of her breasts, spreads his hand around it, and squeezes because it's a breast, because he wants it, because he _wants_ to. "We doin' this?"

"He _says_ ," she scoffs, scratching across his belly, and then her hands meet up at her belt to jerk it open. "Like a sodding virgin."

"You know I'm not," he protests, but her grin shakes him loose, _that_ grin, the one that's fond and mocking all at once.

"I know you've been to the Rose, but I don't know who you've been buying. Maybe you never done it with a woman."

"I _have_ ," and he tries to help with her trousers but she bats him away. "No, I have, really."

She arches an eyebrow. "Any you didn't pay for?"

"Yeah, I," well, only Isabela. "Does it matter?"

"Fuck _yeah_ , it does," and her trousers are off, her stockings off; she tugs her shirt over her head, and Maker she's lean. So much bloody muscle, but still so lean, and Carver wants to kiss her belly so he leans up, catches her about the waist, and curls to do exactly that, kissing and licking her because, because he just wants to. She makes a sound suspiciously like a giggle, and laces her hands in his hair. "Maaaaker, Ferelden. Ever done it with your mouth?"

And he has, but-- "Not with a lady."

She grins, nails scratching his scalp. "You wanna try?"

He does. But first he tries to get her out of the fabric holding back her breasts, and when he can't manage it he finds one with his mouth and just sucks on it. She shudders, and shoos him away.

"Gimme a bit." She fumbles with the cloth and then her breasts come free, and ... Maker, it's been a long time. He puts a hand over one of them, thumb smoothing over her skin. 

"Fuck," he swears quietly, and then, "fucking hell, Rue, you're so ... fuck."

"Yeah, I know." But she's smiling, or smirking, really. "You can put that back in your mouth if you like"

He does. She makes good noises when he uses his tongue, and better noises when he gives a bit of teeth, and he's so fucking hard he could burst but it's not enough, not yet, so he pulls her down against his crotch and ... oh.

It's so good.

In the back of his head he knows they shouldn't be doing this, knows it's a bad idea, but she has his trousers open, down around his ankles and _off_ , and he palms himself in his smalls because ... well, obviously.

"Rue ... maybe," but she pinches him hard, low on his hip, and shakes her head.

"Shut up, Ferelden."

He shuts up, lets her press his hand up between her thighs and ... she's soaked all the way through the cloth, and he groans because, fuck, he wants this so much. He rubs at her, twists his fingers around the edge of her smalls, finds her hot and wet underneath, and it's so unfamiliar. It was different with Isabela -- she just stripped him and rode him and that was good but not like this.

"No, higher," she says, and he goes where he's told, and when she holds his hand where she wants him she _groans_ , grinding against his fingers, and it's ... oh, how he _wants_. Maybe she'll let him fuck her, maybe she won't, but either way this is _so good_. 

And then-- "Maker, I want you to tongue me."

"Okay," he gasps, and she's climbing out of her smalls, settling her knees on either side of his head, and he can _see_ her, can see her cunt pink and perfect in a shroud of damp honey-brown curls, and he doesn't know how to do this but he wants to and maybe she'll show him.

She braces a hand against the wall, her cheeks flush with colour. "You good?"

"Come _on_ ," he begs, and she grins, tipping her hips forward into his face.

She tastes like ... savoury, almost sweet, sweaty and delicious and like nothing else. He wraps his hands around her arse, pulls her down into his mouth, and holy hell, he's going to spill in his pants only --

"Oh ... yeah, that's ... no a little less ... no, no, no, _yeah_ , right there .... better, fuck, you're ... that's good, keep doing that, ohhh, oh," and her voice hikes up, higher and higher, her knees so tight around his skull that he thinks she might crush him, and then she shudders, going weak and loose, her weight coming down heavy on his chest. "Fuck. Fuck ... that's ... " She leans her forehead against the wall to catch her breath and then, "That was okay, Ferelden."

He can't help it; he laughs, weak and breathless, and his hands go up her back, just kneading her skin with his fingers. "Thanks."

"Mmm." She opens her eyes, and Carver wants nothing so much as to drag her down to be kissed so he tries to, and she chuckles, spreading out over him like a blanket.

She's so fucking wet. His _chin_ is wet. He can feel her against his thigh, hot and slick, and then she shifts, dragging up over his cock. "You wanna?"

 _Yes._ "I ... we don't have to." Though.

"We don't, but," and she grinds down against him again, and he thinks about how easily he'd slide into her right now and it's... "But do you _want_?"

He does. "I need," and he tries to pull down his smalls, just eager to feel her flesh against his own. "Ugh, these fucken things..."

Ruvena laughs, high and breathy, and then she's tugged them down far enough for him to kick them away. She smirks at his dick, brushes it with the backs of her fingers and Carver can't help how it leaps up at her. "Oh, yeah, you _want_ to."

"Don't have to ... to anything, if you don't want. And I can wait. If you _do_."

She palms his cheek, brushes a thumb against his mouth. "Don't need to wait, Ferelden. You forgotten how women work? I can go again."

So. She rubs up against him and, Maker, how slick it is, how _good_ , and then she has the head of his cock nested in her cunt, rolls her hips, and ...

Ah. Fuck. _Rue_.

"Andraste's fucken mercy, Rue," he groans, and he hasn't been inside someone, inside _anyone_ for so long. It's better than, than anything he can remember, and she sits back, finding a spot she likes and then...

Well.

She rides him like a monster, or like he's the monster, just settles onto his hips and _rolls_ with it. Oh, Maker, _oh_ , he doesn't know what to do, so when she grabs his hand and holds it up against herself he pushes his knuckles up to her, smoothes his other hand over her belly and further to find one breast and then ... then he curls, tightens muscles in his midriff to come up and find her, his hand coming down to pull her hips into his, mouth wide and open to lick at one hard, dark nipple.

They shouldn't, but he really doesn't care.

He has his mouth on her breast, his thumb in the curls of her cunt, her hand hard around his wrist to hold him there, and the _sounds_ she makes. Maker fuck, and, Maker _bless_ , she's so fucking _beautiful_ , and he wants to, to roll her over and fuck down into her until everything comes apart. 

So he does. 

"Don't finish inside," she warns him, hot and breathless, and he wants to but he heeds her, pulling out to empty himself against her thigh, and ah, fuck, _Rue._

After, or after he's done rutting into her skin, she pulls his hand down, kissing him messily until she's ground herself out, again, against his fingers, and then they lie on the bed, sticky and loose-limbed, still kissing, still clutching at one another. Her fingers are warm and sure when they tug at his hair, ease firmly against the muscles of his neck and his shoulders. This. He could have had this, could _have_ this if only...

"Mmmm," and she nuzzles into the hollow of his throat. "You're heavy, Ferelden."

He climbs off her, and then it's awkward. She's still so _naked_. He doesn't know what to do.

"Well," she says. She grins at him, a different sort of grin than he's used to, reaches to brush something away from his cheek. "You're all right, right?"

It makes him stop, stare at her, and then-- "You didn't do this for _me_."

"Not a bit," she says, dragging the pillow up to lean against and wriggling under the bedcovers for, he imagines the warmth. "Still. Good to get done. I'll miss you," she adds, eyes glued to where her fingers are messing about in the hair on his chest. "Leastways now I know you've got something in your pants worth having."

"Oh, yeah?"

She snorts, pulls at his hair. "Don't get funny about it, Ferelden."

She stays a while, dozes a little, and he supposes he does too because all of a sudden she’s dressing, wrapping herself back up in her clothes and she looks … like Rue. She arches an eyebrow at him as he reaches groggily for her thigh, just wanting to put a hand on her before whatever comes next, and then she messes up his hair.

“You’re a pretty fucker, you know.”

Her tone is fond, anyway. Carver blinks at her, tries to shake a little sense back into himself, but it’s no use. “Nah. Girls are pretty. _You’re_ pretty, I mean.”

“Oh, _thanks_ , Ferelden.” Her mouth makes a shape he isn’t sure he likes, almost grim. “You’re leaving me here, all the same. First Pax, now you … shit, I don’t know.”

He has no idea what to say to her, so he sits up, pulls her into a hug, and then he doesn’t want to let go. He has to, though, when she pushes him away.

“Get your shit together, Ferelden.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo, thanks to the helpful people who mentioned I had mistakenly double-posted the sex :)


	13. Chapter 13

When he's awake Anders ignores her, or, sometimes, attacks her with words that sound like him but also flat and terrible. In the Fade, though--

"No, no, no!" He shakes his head at her, exasperated, but there is a timbre to it that she likes, that isn't just hatred. "If you lump all magic together it ignores the _method_ of it. How can you say it's all the same? How can you teach it that way?"

They are sitting on a hill somewhere in Ferelden, and his memory of this midsummer day is strong enough that she can smell the heather baking fragrant on the hillside. There's a lake below, and at the far shore a tower of stone so tall she wonders how it does not simply topple over. The sky is blue, with crisp fat clouds clustered in it like sheep, and if she didn't know better she might be fooled by the clarity of it. But, it _is_ only the Fade, the distances dancing in the periphery of her vision, and she knows those distances conceal demons who want only to feed on them both.

"I don't teach it. I've never had the chance. But, learning, it never bothered me what kind of magic it was." She plucks a windflower, blows on it, watches the seed-umbrellas float away on air that exists only in Anders' mind. "It seems so silly."

"So human, you mean." He puffs out a breath, the loose hair of his fringe scattered by it. "You must hate us so much."

Merrill frowns. "I don't hate you. I wouldn't visit if I did."

"Yes you would. You'd come for the gossip, if nothing else." He eyes her sidelong, mouth curved into a wry sort of smile. "Be honest, Merrill. Humans. What we've done to you."

"I hate what was done to the People," she agrees, picking another windflower and twirling it in her fingers. They're so delicate, so lovely. She misses them. That, she knows, is why so many have sprung up in the grass around her just now. "Humans ... you're awful in so many ways, but I don't hate you. You've done awful things to yourselves, too. The Chantry."

She doesn't have to explain; Anders understands. He scowls and the clouds darken, just a little, shifting into patterns that portend rain. "The fucking Chantry. The Circle needn't be what they've made of it. What did they think would happen, locking people up and making us pretend to be pious? The number of lectures I've had about 'morality' and 'chastity'. It's not like there was anything else to do."

He sounds annoyed but not hateful, and it surprises her because the Anders she knows in waking talks about the Circle as if it's a prison (and even that is a concept she doesn't really understand, only that Anders likens it to slavery, another concept she doesn't really understand). Now he sounds almost tolerant. "You hated it there. You ran away so much, didn't you?"

"I did hate it there, but ... all right." And here he goes again, trying to explain, but it's better than the way he normally rants at her, accusing her of things and never listening. This Anders ... she likes him. A little. "Imagine you were locked up in a building, never allowed outside except to tend the herb gardens, always watched by people who hated you. Imagine if they droned on and on about how cursed you were, how dangerous you were, how the Maker frowned on you. And then, when you tried to get a little entertainment, if they stopped that too, told you it was wrong, when you weren't hurting anyone, just _bored_. Would you stick around for that?"

"No." Merrill chews her lip, because she knows what he's talking about and she's curious but unsure if he'll appreciate her questions. Humans generally don't. Still. "You mean lovemaking, don't you? That's what you were doing for entertainment."

" _Oh_ , yes. If you _must_ call it 'lovemaking'." He grins, and now his expression is something Merrill thinks might be saucy. " _I'd_ just call it a good fuck."

Merrill nods; she thinks she understands. "Fucking, then. For fun?"

And now he looks delighted. "Of course it's fun. Wouldn't you say it's fun? Have you _had_ a good fucking, Merrill?"

She can tell by his tone that he's teasing, mocking her maybe, and he expects her to blush. So she doesn't. She's friends with Isabela, after all. "I've had lovemaking. Fucking is the same thing, isn't it?"

"Not _quite_." He leans back on his elbows, smirking up at her from the grass. The clouds have settled, gone white and puffy again. "Fucking is like lovemaking without pretending you're in love. More fun, less worrisome. Meaningless, which is fun _because_ it's meaningless. No entanglements. No tears." And his grin deepens into something else. "Unless you like being fucked 'til you sob."

"Do you?"

He tips up his chin, and his gaze is challenging. "Sometimes. You?"

"I've never tried. I don't see how it could happen."

"It takes a certain amount of skill," he says loftily, and now he's showing off. "You have to make it feel so good it makes your lover want to cry."

Merrill thinks about it. "I've felt like that. Sometimes. Sharing magic." _With Hawke,_ she doesn't say, but he seems to understand her nevertheless.

"Oh, that. Yes, I suppose--" and he frowns, but the sky is clear and the wind is gentle, and she doesn't think he's cross. "You do that with Hawke."

"Ye-es," she says. And then, because it seems relevant, "No lovemaking, though."

"I thought not. But I wondered." He looks at her thoughtfully, idly catching some grass between his toes. "I don't know why he doesn't... I mean. It would make more sense."

She isn't sure what he means, except in as much as she thinks she might understand, a little, because it has worried her that Hawke doesn't seem to want that, not from her. But from Anders, all the time. She doesn't say it. It's too personal.

Anders is still watching her, still frowning. "You're very pretty, Merrill."

"Thank-you?" What else can she say?

"I know he likes women. And he likes ... he seems to care for you very much."

There's a question in his tone, but she doesn't know what it is. "Hawke is kind to me, but--"

He nods. "But cruel, too. I don't know if he knows how cruel he is. To both of us."

"He's not," she argues, "he's wonderful. And I do love him."

"I know. It's our tragedy, to love him." Anders goes quiet then, his gaze playing over the scenery, over the lake and the the hillside. Merrill has no response, but he doesn't seem to expect any, so she changes the subject.

"Where is this? You seem to remember it ver-ry clearly."

"Oh." He points with one foot, all but one toe curled under. His toes are long and pale, with hair on each of them, but still elegant, like his hands. " _That's_ Kinloch Hold. The Circle I lived, most of my life. And this is where I stopped, when I escaped one time. I looked back, here, and I thought, 'Karl, if you could see this.'" He sighs, long and deep. "I was so pleased with myself, but this is where I started to miss him. It only got worse after that. I was so determined to be away, though, that I ignored it as long as I could. The only good part about being captured was seeing Karl again. Poor bastard."

Merrill opens her mouth to tell him about her friend Mahariel, but at that moment the Fade shivers, and Anders sits up, suddenly anxious. "Merrill--"

But she knows. "Dareth shiral," she says, and then skips out of his dream into the place between.

She hates doing it, hates leaving him there alone but ... they both know that if she meets Justice there the spirit will confront her, and that is a confrontation neither of them wants.

In the morning he ignores her again, and she does not try to draw him out. It never works, he is always dismissive and hurtful. It is not, she thinks, really him, but then, what does she have for comparison? Nothing, except what she has seen, what she hopes and, Creators guide her, what she believes true.

He _is_ different in himself, she decides, watching the shell that houses the conglomerate of Justice-Anders, and the person that he is inside is someone she wants to help, whatever it takes.

* * *

"It's just like him," Hawke complains, throwing another sovereign down on the table and scooping up some silver. "He never thinks of anyone but himself."

The night has grown deep and dark, only Hawke and Varric and Isabela left now in Varric’s suite, and Fenris is heavy with wine, dizzy with it, and he's stopped listening. Or, rather he's stopped caring. He buys a card, trades another, drinks from his cup and lets the words wash over him.

Isabela snorts, picking up Fenris' discard with too great a glee for it to mean anything. "Doesn't he? Seems to me he spends an awful lot of time worrying about what people think. I wonder why that is." She arches an eyebrow, glancing at Hawke over one raised shoulder. "Who could he be trying to impress?"

"Carver?" The word goes through Fenris like a blade, but Hawke just scratches his beard, casual, as though it means nothing. "No idea. Some pretty pair of ankles, no doubt. Well, I suppose there's dozens of those in Starkhaven. Sebastian would know. Maybe I'll ask him."

"Oh-ho, don't you know?" Isabela taps her cards against her chin, eyes glittering with secrets. "Choirboy's gone too."

"To Starkhaven?" Hawke looks surprised, but covers it with a shrug. "Have they run off together, then?"

Varric chuckles. "Now that sounds like something _you'd_ write, Rivaini."

"Mmmmm, yes. I can see it now -- the Knight and the Priest, bound together by their forbidden love and begging the Maker's forgiveness as they tumbled about like angstridden lusty puppies." Isabela shudders, licking her lip. "It practically writes itself."

"Urgh, no it _doesn't_." Garrett buys another card, scowls at it, and then scowls at Isabela for good measure. "Do what you want with his princeliness, but leave my brother out of your 'friend-fiction'."

It appears to have no effect on Isabela, but the whole discourse leaves a bad taste in Fenris' mouth. He shifts, unhappy, and perhaps this is why he loses the hand. In any case he is near the end of his coin, so he excuses himself, meaning to leave.

"I might come with you," Isabela says, pocketing her winnings. "I've a sovereign earmarked for a pair of gorgeous brown eyes at the Rose." She drains her cup, ignoring Hawke's pitiful entreaties, and hooks an arm through Fenris'. "I don't mind sharing, if you'd like to join us."

"Why does _Fenris_ get an invitation and I _don't_?" Hawke complains, only half-joking, but Isabela just laughs and says something about Fenris not being selfish. Fenris ignores it, ignores her hand on his arm, bids Varric a good-night.

The air outside is cool, pleasant after the smoky heat of the Hanged Man, and when Fenris tugs hard enough Isabela lets him go, carding her fingers through her hair to plump it out.

"I don't suppose you care, then, that Carver's gone?" 

He glances at her, but then down, concentrating on putting one foot above another on the stairs. "It is no business of mine."

"And if he _had_ run away with Sebastian? If they were feathering themselves a love-nest, somewhere far from Kirkwall and all her memories?"

It seems improbable, but Fenris mislikes it in any case. "Then I would wish them all the joy this world could give them." The words come out sour, gruff, and Isabela patently does not believe him.

"Would you be jealous of Carver, if they did? Or envious of him?" She doesn't wait for an answer, goes on merrily, both hands out for balance as she skips up the steps. "I know _I'd_ envy him, worming his way under Sebastian's robes. Mmmm, did I ever tell you how fine he is beneath them? Very fine, very well-made, in _every_ way."

She means it to goad, he knows, and he cannot help the sharp stab of jealousy at the thought of Carver and, and Sebastian, wound together in lust. Or, worse, affection. Still. "Carver dislikes Sebastian. He would never pursue him, no matter how purportedly fine his _beneath_."

"So little you know," she teases, bunting him playfully with her shoulder. "I saw how Carver looked, when he discovered us naked together. That wasn't dislike on his face, not by half."

Another goad, and altogether as foolish as the last. "Enough," he growls, and yes, he is angry with her for the suggestion, and for her insistence. "Do not needle me."

"Oooh, there's something to needle, then? You act so cool about him, I begin to doubt how you yearned for him before you took him to bed. And after, when you thought him lost. I remember how you ached, don't even pretend you didn't."

It means nothing. "Are you so bored here in Kirkwall that you must make fantasies of us all?"

The words are, perhaps, ill-considered; Isabela nods vigorously, pausing at the top of the stair to wait for him. " _Oh_ , yes. Why do you think I spend so much time at the Rose? There's nothing else to _do_." 

"Indeed? Then, you have not been frequenting the Chantry enough to know Sebastian is gone?" And that is a wound, small but sharp, that Sebastian would simply leave without word, when Fenris has, against his best judgement, thought him a friend.

"He came to _me_ ," Isabela says, grinning. She is too dark-cheeked for him to see her blush, but he suspects another woman _might_ blush at this. "You and Hawke were off chasing dragonlings. Can't expect people to tell you things when you're not around."

Fenris twitches, and then-- "He came to the estate. I was there. He said nothing to me of it, but ..."

"Sebastian did?"

"No. Hawke."

"Oh, _Carver_." Isabela pauses, tipping her weight onto one foot and looking at him under the lights of a Hightown mansion. "Well. He didn't say a word to me either, so there you go. Not that I'd expect him to. Carver's no good for talking. He likes _doing_ things instead."

Fenris has nothing, so he says nothing.

Isabela, though, is ready with words, as always. "He'll come back. His mother's here."

"As though you or I understand other people's care for their mothers," Fenris grumbles, but the look she casts him is startled, and then shutters away.

"I cared for my mother." It's low, soft, and unlike her. "A long time ago."

"She sold you," he says. It comes out harsh, because Isabela said so and Fenris ... Fenris cannot reconcile the two. "How could you care for her?"

Isabela is quiet for a while, so quiet that Fenris regrets having said it at all. Then, in the shadows of a potted tree, she says, "It's never so simple, Fenris. I thought you'd know that better than anyone."

He does not catch her meaning, can make no sense of it, but then she's dancing forward into the light spilling out of the Blooming Rose, and her manner seems same as it ever was, light and carefree and unrepentant.

"I meant what I said. You can come in with me, if you like. My shout." Her smile is easy, and the hand she holds out is welcoming. "Take your mind off things?"

"I have no interest in whoring."

"Well. Maybe we could skip the whoring, and I'll come with you instead."

It would be easy. For her faults, she is his closest friend, the only one who has never abandoned him nor misunderstood him nor hurt him in some way. He cannot deny that she is beautiful. And, as he said once, long ago over wine in a warm and dusty place where he had felt content, she is hardly the kind to make an unwilling offer.

But.

"No." 

Her gaze is direct and too knowing. "Do you mean to pine away forever? He's gone now, Fenris. You shut him out and ignored him and now he's _gone_. You can't have him back. Not without trying."

"It would make no difference if I did," he argues, too full of wine to protect himself from her. "That bridge is _burnt_."

"Then rebuild it. Or swim." She smiles and it is a kind, sad thing. "Don't drown yourself in a river of woe."

Is that what he's doing? He doesn't know, and is ill-equipped to judge in any case. "I have enough worldly concerns to keep me afloat," he tells her, and she sighs, shakes her head, tips it on one side to regard him with what can only be amused tolerance.

"Well, then. I'll see you on the far shore." And she goes in, raising a hand to hail someone beyond the threshold.

Fenris goes home. Orana is asleep but has left her door open, and he glances in on her and the Bean, taking pains not to disturb her. Tully -- Catulus -- is awake, coiled in cloth against her side; he makes a bright sound when Fenris looks in, tries to push himself up, one little hand reaching.

"Shhhh, go to sleep." Tully just blinks at him, eyes huge in the dim light of coals low in the grate.

Fenris closes the door. They are warm and safe, and his room when he goes up to it is likewise warm and safe. It would be better, he thinks, if Orana and the child were here with him in this large grand room than down there in what can only be a servant's chamber. But then, there are nights he stays up late, nights when Orana would no doubt enjoy the privacy of her own room and her own door, even if she leaves it open for his sake. And nights, again, where he welcomes his own privacy.

Like tonight. Isabela had meant her offer, he could have brought her with him, could have hosted her with the wine Orana has left open on the table, the bread and cheese likewise left out under a bowl to keep it from going stale.

Could he have? He _could_ , but ... it seems sordid. Once, maybe, they might have enjoyed one another, might have found some distraction in the pleasures of their bodies. He might have given himself to her, to the welcoming warmth of her, abandoned himself in the softness of another’s flesh pressed against his own. 

He racks his armour but does not, tonight, clean it. His skin feels too hot for that, too impatient. He is himself restless, and he paces a little, drinking some wine he does not want out of the cup laid out for him as though he is the master of the house and deserves such luxuries.

He _should_ have brought her, beautiful Isabela, to his room. He would not now be alone. That would be enough, would it not? To be in her arms and know that for this moment, at least, he was wanted?

Memory comes over him like a breaking storm.

 _”Please,” Carver begged, desperate and needy, demanding in his need. He put his hands up against Fenris’ chest, fingers curling into his ribs, nails scrabbling blunt and harmless against his skin. On his back he was_ helpless _, knees wide around Fenris’ waist, his hips driving up against Fenris’ belly. This man, this_ human, _weak and_ begging _. Carver might overpower him, should he try, but Fenris knew he would not, knew that Carver would permit his wrists to be pushed down into the bed-linen, would lie still if he were told, would bite down on any sound Fenris could draw from him, should Fenris wish it._

_Fenris did not wish it. “Make your noise,” he said, and Carver fell back, mouth open, and he cried out when Fenris touched him. As commanded. The thrill of it wound up Fenris’ bones, how easily he was mastered, though Fenris never meant to master him in this, though … he did want. And, it seemed, Carver wanted too. “No-one else may have you, do you understand? Only me.”_

_And Carver nodded, lip caught in his teeth until Fenris drove another cry from his throat. “Yours,” he breathed when he found breath again, “All yours, Fenris, I’m all--”_

Fenris banishes it, tucks it away in his head, just another memory he will not suffer to ruin him.

But. He did want. And Carver had given, and what had Fenris given _him_? 

A safe place. A refuge. And then, how cruelly he had snatched it away.

He finds himself in his favourite chair, remembers -- _Carver on his knees, mouth filled and_ hungry _, eyes turned up like chips of the sky, and his muffled moan and the flutter of his lashes as he_ \-- and how he hates himself. He leans his wrists on his knees, lets himself shudder and despair. What has he done? What has he _lost_? All of himself, though he can blame that on Danarius, and all of the self he has made for himself, for which he can blame no-one _but_ himself. Ugh, how it _burns_.

These thoughts should be gone. Carver … Fenris should give him no mind, should not remember these things so earnestly. And, on that day, when he saw Carver again after _so long_ , he should have…

Oh, his face. When he saw Fenris, oh, and how his eyes lit up, oh! and then dulled, _oh_... and how he turned away, with his shoulders still the same shoulders, his hips the same, his frame, all of him, the same man now with the weight of a world reflected in his eyes, the same one that Fenris has wanted, that he _wants_ , more than he can bear.

Fenris crawls into his bed, but … Once, it would have smelled like human musk and a particular sweat and the soap Fenris had bought for another, but, now, just soaps Orana has bought for _him_ , only of himself.

Why must he want something so far out of reach? But … has it not always been like this? What he wanted of Carver, when he had him, had been out of reach. Had it not? Was it not, still? Or…

 _It’s too late,_ he tells himself, but a familiar, teasing voice reminds him, _You could have him, if you tried._

“Ah!” It aches. Fenris pulls his head down, his knees come up, arms pulled tight and safe around his legs to make a small space in which he can rage and weep and no-one can accuse him or belittle him or hurt him, but …

Carver, weak from lovemaking, reaching for Fenris’ arm and sighing, loose and anchorless and seeking an anchor from _him_ ; Carver, lifting his gaze from Fenris’ lap, looking for something he could not have from any other; _Carver_ , crying out, his throat ruined and his voice breaking on Fenris’ name; Carver, Carver, _Carver_. Now so distant and so troubled and so much the man Fenris has _loved_ , oh Maker, though he cannot, _will_ not say it aloud, even to himself.

A human like any other, and unlike any other. _Mine, my own, mine no longer._

And Fenris has no-one to blame but himself.


	14. Chapter 14

Orana gives him five days before she breaks.

He is, again, a beast of drunkenness in his bed, with a hangover throbbing in his head. His limbs are treacherous against him, and when she comes to him she is so very unwelcome that he growls at her.

“ _What?_ What is it? Can you not let me be?”

“Serrah,” she says, seating herself on the side of the bed, and it is so unlike her that, even in the depths of his self-hatred, he recognises this as important. “Serrah Fenris. I have a friend.”

He blinks at her, so sick with wine he thinks he might make sick on the floor, but she has brought with her a bucket, and water in a cup, which she now offers him. 

He pushes the cup away, and he doesn’t understand. “What mean you?” he asks, and he doesn’t register that it is said in Tevene until she answers him _in Tevene_.

“To my friend I will go, if so I must. If this place is not a place for me.”

Still, he does not understand. “Tell me, with honesty, what you mean by this.”

She shifts, tucking her skirts around her knees. “For myself, I want nothing. You are a better master than any I have known. But, for my child, I cannot with this.”

The child. Always, the child, and Fenris tries to sit up and, ah, how his head hurts. “Orana.” He swallows nausea down, looks to her face. She is so flat, so resigned. Fenris wants to strip it away but he has nothing. “I misused you, how?”

She shakes her head. “Me? In no way. But my child needs,” and she falters, and takes up the cup of water, offering it again, like a sacrifice. “If you cannot be a good master for Tully, then I must go. If you permit me.”

Oh. And, _oh_. That she would leave him, (and he deserves it, no-one would ever stay for this, this _mess_ ) because he would be _bad for the child_... It hurts. “Orana.” And then, “Orana, I never meant to be master to him.”

“An uncle, then.” Uncle … a male who has no vested interest but cares for a child nevertheless … yes, that is what Fenris has wanted to be. And, it seems, failed at, so very badly. “If you cannot be a good uncle, then I must, it behoves me to, take him to a place where he will be without uncles but without, also,” and she makes an aborted gesture with one hand, “this. If you will not be that to him.”

Fenris feels like … is he dying? How much of that is the wine in his belly, making his head all wrong? All he knows is that, _No,_ Orana and Tully _must not go_. “I … have failed you.”

“You are yourself,” she says, and her voice is light and kind and Fenris does not deserve it. When has he ever deserved kindness such as hers? Never. “We are ourselves, also, and for Tully I want so much.” She smiles, tucking the blankets around him and it makes his stomach roil because he _does not deserve it_. “I would rather it were you who gave it, my master. Outsiders do not understand.”

By ‘outsiders’ she means ‘non-Tevinter-folk’. She means to raise the baby Tevene, and Fenris knows it, and he _hates_ it. “He could have more than that. More than servility to a human.”

She nods; she is so wise, how has he never seen this? “He could. If you would try, my master.” She smiles, and it looks so sad on her painted face. “If you would help me. I have tried, myself, to help you, but I do not know what you want. If you would say, then I would do every thing, help you in every way. Master,” and she ducks her head, fingers knotting in the bedcovers, “Master-who-is-not-my-master. Brother?”

He sees how it hurts her to ask, and it hurts him too to answer her. “If you would be sister to me, then I will do every thing I can to be brother to you.” And his own sister? He tries to forget her.

Still, he meant what he said. Orana hears his sincerity, it seems. She nods.

“Then we will stay. But you must get up, today.” And then she frowns. “And you must try, for the things you want. For … forgive me. You have said things in your cups, and I have listened in case you needed me to act without direction. But …” Her smile is sad, hurt, as though he has hurt her. “Ser Carver. Do you not long for him?”

Fenris feels gutted by it, as if she had reached inside him and tugged, hard, on his vitals. Still, he says, “I do.”

She nods again, and stands up, as though she has found answers to everything she has ever asked of him, and she presents again the cup. “I longed for a child. And now I have got one, for myself, and he lives, and he is beautiful. And I will share him with you because,” and she hesitates, “you are a brother to me, have been for longer than I knew it. And now I will be sister to you, and tell you with honesty, that if you want a thing then you must strive for it, before giving up. Giving up at once is foolish. Please, do not.”

Fenris hears it, and hears in it Isabela, and he feels ruined by it now, from her. _Orana. Have you always been so wise?_

She is still watching him, still offering the cup, and he takes, it drinks it down, and is then immediately sick into the bucket she has brought. Faugh, what _foulness_ she put in the cup. “You _wretch_ ,” he snarls, wet and disgusting in himself. “What did you give me?”

Her mouth curls into a tight and satisfied smile. “Did you not see the two cups? One for my master, one for my brother. My _brother_ needs to sober himself. I have a child, downstairs, in need of an uncle, and I have chores.” She takes up the second cup and holds it out. “This is water. Rinse yourself, brother. Rouse yourself. Tully needs you.”

She goes, leaves him to rinse his mouth and spit it out, and then, when he is still sitting on the edge of the bed in his skin with such a head as he has, she returns, lumps the baby into his arms, and leaves them alone together.

Ah, Tully. He is demanding, snatching at Fenris and whining when he does not get what he wants. His nappy is full, and when Fenris takes him downstairs to tell Orana, all she does is look at him, wide eyed and honest.

“Must I show you how?”

Fenris is ashamed that he does not know what to do, and she shows him, and -- it is disgusting, but also it is necessary. After, Tully catches Fenris’ nose and pinches it so hard. “Ba,” he says, and Fenris snugs him up, clean and fresh as he is, up to his chin. “Bah!” Tully shouts, and Fenris is glad of him, disgusting child. Beautiful child, his own tiny person, tiny little friend. Tully grabs hold of Fenris’ hair and yanks on it, his eyes so big and so blue that Fenris cannot look away.

“Ba,” he says back, and then, when Tully grins, “But what?”

“Nuh,” Tully tells him, his sharp and delicate fingernails raking hard down Fenris’ cheek.

Well. He is only a baby.

“Do not,” Fenris tells him, taking up the little hand and kissing the knuckles of it. Tully wrenches away, squirming like a monster. “No, do not ignore me,” but he cannot help his laughter, because Tully is Tully, himself in himself, and Fenris … loves him. Would never forsake him. No matter what.

“Can you walk, yet, little thing?”

He puts the baby belly-down on the floor -- he is not unreasonable, he puts a blanket down first -- and then he catches a small hand and tries to encourage him up. “Can you stand? Come, now, come up.” 

Tully tries; Fenris tries to help. They are, between them, some time about it.

Eventually Orana finds them both, flat on their bellies on the floor and wriggling one unto the other, and she laughs, offers them both some pieces of fruit with the rinds removed. “Since you are both down there,” she says, in Tevene again, and Fenris thinks--

\-- yes. All of this.

“Orana,” he says aloud, lifting himself on his elbows while the baby gnaws on a chunk of apple. “Please, don’t leave me.”

She looks him over, and he has not felt so considered and so concerned about the outcome of consideration in such a long time. She hefts her laundry basket ( _his_ laundry; he should help her with it) on one hip and she smiles. “Ser _rah_.” And, in Tevene she adds, “If you cleave to me, I will not cleave from you.” It is a cliche, and both of them know it, but the way she smiles at her child and then turns from them both, Fenris believes her.

And she is right, both ways. If he is to be uncle to Tully, then … then he cannot turn from the things that he wants. 

“I will go for him,” he says, to Tully who catches his hand and tries to put Fenris’ fingers in his mouth for gumming. “No, listen.” And if he tells it to a child, does that mean it does not matter?

It matters.

“I will go after him, because … I do love him. And you, you tiny monster.”

“Ung,” Tully says, rubbing spit-slick fingers against Fenris’ own, eyes as wise as a sage. “Mah.”

And, for once, Fenris thinks ... maybe there is someone, such a small someone, who cares for him in spite of all his failings. And maybe, if that is so, then he could try for the things he wants. _If such a little person loves me, then maybe…_

He kisses Tully’s head, wipes his face clean of fruit, and tries again to stand him up.


	15. Chapter 15

Orana's baby is no longer a baby, crawls around on the floor of Fenris' house making sounds that are almost words. "Eh," he says, and, "Ah," and, "Ma," and, "Da," and, "Ba," and every sound he babbles rouses a smile from Fenris that Merrill would never have expected. Dour, sour Fenris, smiling so lovestruck over a baby. It’s obviously not impossible because it is happening, but it seems so incongruous that she can’t help herself.

“You love him, don’t you?”

Fenris jerks, stares at her, and then his familiar scowl comes over him like a raincloud. “What are you asking? Will I hurt him, is that it? I will not. You can tell the abomination that he need not worry about the child’s safety.”

“Tully,” Merrill says, because she’s heard them say it. “You call him ‘Tully’, don’t you?”

If anything it makes Fenris scowl more. “And what would you call him?”

“Da’len,” Merrill tells him, because he asked and he deserves to know. It’s part of his heritage, after all, even if he says he doesn’t want it. “It means ‘child’.”

“That is not a name,” Fenris argues, hands gone to fists on his knees. “He deserves a name. We-- He was baptised 'Catulus'.”

“Is that a human name, or a Tevinter name?” She doesn’t mean it as a barb, but Fenris seems to take it so.

“‘Orana’ is a Tevinter name. I suppose you think _that_ is no proper name for one of your precious ‘people’.”

He sounds so cross. “No less a proper name than ‘Fenris’.” But, well as she meant it, that only seems to anger him further; he glares at the floor fiercely enough it ought by rights to crumble into dust. That isn’t what she wanted, so she tries again. “Our names are our names. Wherever they come from, if they mean something to us it doesn’t matter.”

And that, at least, seems to work. Fenris subsides, watching the child drag himself up a table-leg to wobble on his own two feet.

“Bah!” he says, one hand out in entreaty, and Fenris’ mouth does that thing it always does when Tully reaches for him. It always looks so painful on his face.

He reaches for the baby, takes him up, furls him in his arms as though he is exactly as precious as he is.

“What _would_ you call him?” Fenris asks, quietly, as though it is a secret between the two of them. “If he were one of yours.” He asks, chin heavy over the baby's head.

Merrill thinks. She’s never named a baby, and this is not her baby to name, but still--

“Falon,” she says at length, thinking of her long lost Mahariel. “Friend. Because Orana is my friend. And, for you, Falon’fen. ‘Friend of the Wolf’.”

Fenris shudders, but his face seems ... "It would be a good name, for him, either one. How would you say, 'little friend'?"

"Da'falon. And 'little friend of the wolf'? Da'falon'fen."

Fenris shakes his head, says nothing, mouth coming down to brush the baby's head like the wings of a moth; later she hears him whisper, "Da'falon," to the child, and if she can do nothing else for him at least she can give him this.

* * *

Merrill likes Orana. They have so little in common -- they are both women, both elvhen, of an age and here in Kirkwall, but beyond that? Not much in common at all.

Sometimes she feels Isabela is more like herself than Orana could ever be, but also ... Isabela is so bold, so brave, so utterly unconcerned about what people might think, so very sure of herself that it spins Merrill's head. Isabela walks into Hawke's house, ignores Leandra's barbed comments, laughs off Anders' cruel indifference, and catches Merrill by the hand.

"Kitten! Let's go to the Rose. This place is _boring_."

Leandra makes such a face, and Merrill thinks, _Bother it all._ "A-all right. Oh!" She wavers, and sighs. "No, I mustn't. I promised Orana I'd visit." 

It doesn't worry Isabela one bit. "Then, let's visit together. Fenris has wine, I know he does. Let's steal some for ourselves and maybe Orana will make us supper." She's already tugging Merrill toward the door and Merrill, oh, she finds it hard to tell Isabela 'no' but also ... also she does not want to tell her so.

Leandra shakes her head, vanishes into the kitchen, and all her palpable disapproval only makes Merrill's mind up for her. "All right."

Bodahn confronts her at the door. "Serrah, where should I tell Messere Hawke to find you?" It's a reminder, really, that Bodahn thinks of her as little more than an extension of Hawke. She doesn't like that, but she doesn't know how to express it without being unnecessarily rude to the man who empties her night-soil. (And she's tried to do it herself but he just won't let her.)

"You can tell Hawke," Isabela purrs, grinning merrily, "that we're having a ladies night. And he's not invited."

And that's it. Out in the deserted night time market-square, Merrill drags her heels. "Isabela, I should have said--" but Isabela makes a noise Varric once described as a 'raspberry', though Merrill still doesn't know what it has to do with fruit.

"Bugger Hawke. You're not his bloody pet, kitten." And she grins, chucking Merrill's chin with her fingers. "You're _mine_ , if you're anyone's."

"How is that any different?" Merrill asks, stubborn and, if she's honest, a little cross about it.

Isabela stops to give her a frank and human look. "It isn't. Except that it _is_. But, you really shouldn't put up with it from me, either."

Merrill doesn't know what to do with that. Still, she follows Isabela to Fenris' house, waits to be let in, and watches as Isabela swans past Orana and down to Fenris' cellar to steal a couple of bottles of wine.

"He won't mind," Isabela insists when Orana protests, and then she flourishes a knife in one hand, popping the cork out of a bottle with a dramatic flair that Merrill envies. "He's got plenty! If he's a bother about it--" She flips a sovereign onto the kitchen table. "Just buy him some more."

It's amazing how easily Isabela gets her way. Merrill would never have dared help herself to anything of Fenris', and she's sure Orana would neither, but they both let Isabela do as she likes, let her arrange the kitchen chairs around the end of the table closest the fire, and when Isabela muses about cups Orana hurries to a cupboard to pull out two.

"No, no, no." Isabela flops into a chair, already pouring out generous serves of wine. "You forgot one."

Orana hesitates and then takes out another, setting it on the table with a shy smile. "Messere?"

Isabela fills that too. "Better." 

She doesn't seem to notice that Merrill and Orana are awkward together; just drinks her wine, tops up their cups, and makes outrageous comments about Fenris and his house that are really quite rude, but seem to amuse Orana all the same.

"So, you must hear a lot of things, living in Broody's pockets like this." Isabela leans her elbows on the table, waggling her eyebrows in a way that Merrill has come to recognise. She's looking for gossip. Merrill thinks about distracting her -- Orana looks so flustered -- but Isabela presses on before she has a chance. "He must have had a bushel of lovers since he threw poor old Carver out."

And, wonder of wonders, Orana just shakes her head, her face very pink. She's almost finished her first cup of wine; Merrill wonders if it has the same strong affect on her that it does on Merrill herself, and then -- "No, not a one."

Isabela ooohs. "That's not healthy. Has he tried it on with you, then?"

"Isabela!" It's not nice, Merrill's almost sure, but then ... she's curious herself. Though she never would have asked.

Orana simply continues to blush. "I ... he has never."

"Really?" Isabela looks so surprised. "But ... _you_ have, haven't you? Lovers, I mean. You didn't get that baby on your own."

Merrill opens her mouth, but -- "That would be impossible, messere," Orana says, her face still pink, but the raise of her chin is challenging instead of shy. "I'm sure you know that."

Isabela chortles, and, Creators, she is _beautiful_. "And _how_!" She refills her cup, gestures pointedly with it. "So. You have a _man_ somewhere, pigeon. Good for you!"

Orana ducks her head, but her smile is ... "I _had_ a man. He is gone now, however."

Which only makes Isabela demand details, and Orana _answers_ her: he was very handsome; he does not know about the child; Orana regrets nothing; yes, it was very, _very_ good.

"Antivan," Orana says in answer to Isabela's last question, and she looks quietly pleased. "I think the name he gave me was not his own, but it matters not. I got what I wanted."

It's awful, somehow, that Orana found a man for -- Merrill would have called it 'lovemaking' but she thinks this is what Anders meant when he said 'a good fuck'. She reaches for the wine, refills her own cup, and does not sulk. She is a grown woman; it would be childish to do it.

But-- "Sooo," Isabela drawls, eyeing Merrill sidelong. "Tell us about Hawke."

Orana, too, looks interested, but Merrill has nothing. "We don't, not that," she says, and she can't keep her unhappiness to herself, it seems, because Isabela makes a face. 

Just then there is a bang within the house and Orana jerks to her feet. "Oh! I must--"

"Fenris can take care of himself," Isabela tells her, arching an eyebrow. "You don't have to run after him. If he really needs you he'll come looking."

Orana hesitates, but sits back down.

And they both turn to look at _her_.

"Hawke _does_ it," Isabela says gently. "I'm sure he does."

Merrill nods, miserable with it. "Not with me, though." She waves her hands, wanting them to understand. "But with magic, we do--"

"Kitten, it's not the same." Isabela sounds so soft. Orana, too, looks soft about it, and it's awful. _As though either of them could ever know, anyway._ "Maybe you could seduce him."

Orana coughs, one hand going over her mouth for politeness, and then she nods. "There are ways ... if you want him in your bed."

"I do-on't," Merrill protests, but she knows it for a lie and cannot contain it. "Oh, I do," she says, burying her face in her hands, feeling hot and weak and small and inexplicably ashamed of herself.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting," Isabela says, slipping an arm around Merrill's shoulders and hugging her. "You're allowed to want. And to have, if you want it. And no shame in not getting it, all the same"

Merrill peeks out through her fingers. Orana is filling their cups, opening the second bottle to do so, and she pushes Merrill's cup closer. "Messere."

She sounds so kind. They are both, so very _kind_ , but neither of them understand. 

They are interrupted; Fenris comes in, stops very suddenly in the doorway, and stares at them as though they have all sprouted horns like kossith.

"Ho, Fenris," Isabela calls, saluting him with her cup. "You can't come in here, it's ladies only. Sorry." She grins, not looking sorry at all.

Fenris blinks at her, but instead of cursing them all he just nods and looks to Orana. "Very well. Is Tully...?"

"Sleeping, serrah." She stands up, smooths her skirts, and goes into a room alongside the kitchen that Merrill knows for her own. She comes back with the baby-who-is-no-longer-a-baby wrapped in a blanket, and offers him up. "If you will mind him?"

Fenris takes the child, settling him against his shoulder competently. "Yes." He turns to go, hesitating on the threshold with the bundle of child in his arms. "Will you ... if he is hungry?"

"I'll come," she tells him, and then turns her back on him, chin held high.

He goes; Isabela is grinning gleefully but waits until he's upstairs to rap her knuckles sharply on the table. "Well _done_ , pigeon! You've tamed the wild wolf. Good on you!"

Orana shakes her head. "Not tamed, messere. But, he is very attentive to Tully. And Tully to him. It is as well. In Tevinter I would have friends who could help, but here ... it is fortunate that my duties are so few. I have time for a child, but with Serrah Fenris to help me I have even a little time for myself."

She's so lucky. Merrill feels envious; she has herself too much time, and none of it spent the way she'd like. She's neglected the Eluvian, she realises, spending her days trotting at Hawke's heels when he asks for her, and ghosting about his house when he doesn't. And sleeping. She sleeps more, now, seeking Anders in the Fade and some days just _sleeping_ , because there seems no good reason to get up.

The Eluvian sits dust-covered in an out-building (what does it mean, out-building? how is dust not the same as dirt?) and, _What am I doing? I did not break from Marethari for_ this.

Isabela teases Orana some more, and Orana makes them skillet-bread and eggs, and Merrill eats and drinks, and goes home as soon as she can because she cannot bear it any longer.

Pawsha is waiting for her, grim and moody on the bed. 'My Lady Divine,' Anders calls her, when she struts up onto his desk and decorates his papers with paw-prints. Then he coos at her, hands moving over her fur in ways that make her arch up, offering him kisses, and sometimes Merrill thinks it is obvious that Pawsha loves Anders more than she loves Merrill.

He is always kind to the cat-who-was-a-kitten, Merrill has noted. She thinks he is the real Anders then, whenever Pawsha rubs against him and he takes her up. She has scratched him and _he_ apologised, no blue in his eyes, no scent of hoar-frost.

(Anders was born in the snow, so he told her, and also he said that the ice of the mountain is the truest justice; impersonal and heartless.)

Pawsha rumbles, scuffs her head along the fold-back of the blanket. "Mrrrrrrrrrrrl," she says, and Merrill sits to stroke her the way she likes for a while before washing her own hands and face for bed.

Naked, tonight. It's too warm this time of season, and even after she's furled the blankets into a wad at the foot of the bed, with the sheet over and Pawsha against her knees she is still too warm.

She cannot sleep. But she is a mage, and there are ways around that.

It takes a little while to find him, but when she does he looks up at once as though he were expecting her. "I felt sure you'd come."

"Can you sense it, then," she asks, coming down the grassy hill and feeling every blade soft and lovely beneath her feet, "when I'm coming to you?"

"It felt likely." He shrugs, leans back on his palms. He's bootless again, on this same hill, looking over the lake toward the tower. The tower is broken this time, a jagged shattered wreck spilling debris into its grounds and onto the far shore. Anders never comments on it, so she does not either.

"Is this your favourite place?" she asks him instead. The soil smells good and dark this time, the breeze whipping the fragrance of sun-baked grass into her nose and throat. That's how strongly he remembers it, so it must be his favourite.

"It was the first time I felt really free," he says, tipping his head back to eye her along one sharp cheekbone. "I'd escaped before, but this time it felt different. It wasn't, in the end, but I was so certain." He shakes his head, and then he smirks at her. "What's yours then, Merrill? Some blood-soaked shrine in the Vimmarks with a demon bent over the altar?"

She knows by now that he's joking. "Would you like to see?"

"Your secret place?" His face, his _Fade_ -face, she reminds herself, shifts in a way she has come to like. "You would dare take a, a shemlen like me?"

She offers her hand. "Do you want to see? You might not like the way." She means, 'It will take blood magic,' and she thinks he must understand by now; he takes her hand, his Fade-shadow buzzing against her palm.

"Please."

It's only blood after all, and only her own.

She leads him through the trees, down the incline to the pool beneath the stars. He slips on the rock and she catches him, holds him up. He laughs, barefoot on the wet moss. "Are we here, then?"

He smiles, and in the starlight he looks so much like himself, with the parts that are not him stripped away, just Anders. "Yes," she says, letting him go. She steps into the pool, skinning out of her clothes as she goes. They're not real clothes, they don't need to dry. "It's not as cold as it looks, I swear."

Anders fusses with the toggles of his jacket. "Where is this? It looks like Ferelden but ... how high up are we?"

"Only the lower slopes," Merrill tells him, leaning up on the natural ledge to look out. It is, of course, much cleaner in the Fade than it had been in reality. And she didn't have to warm the water with magic this time, just remembered it so. "In the Frostback Mountains. Look, you can see all the way down to the plain." There it is, laid out beneath like a blanket, all forests and fields and it's lovely, patched together as it is.

"Oh? So I wasn't far off with the Vimmarks?"

"You reminded me." The sound of water behind her shifts, no longer just the waterfall pouring into the pool but the sound of a body moving within it too, and she turns. He's golden in the light -- that's not right, too bright for stars, but she can't seem to unsee him so.

"It's beautiful," he says, naked as she under the water. He looks so... "Who did you bring here? You did, didn't you? It feels like a trysting place."

Ah, he _would_ ask. "She's dead now," Merrill tells him. "Does it matter?"

He shakes his head. Of course he would understand this. "Not a bit." He comes up beside her, his breath warm even in the Fade, and he looks out. "Everything's so clear. Crisp. But the water's warm."

"It gets humid," she tells him, looking up. "In the summer. Just for a little while."

She knows it's the Fade from how his face is lit, how more-than-real it is. Yet, she cannot deny that he is very handsome like this. "I would have liked to see it."

"You can," she tells him, twisting to meet him face-on. "I'll show you."

He looks pained, and then wild, eyes flashing with defiance. "Shall I live that long, then? To see the Frostbacks?"

"If you come with me. If you'll trust me, Anders--"

But he baulks, gone wavery. "No. Merrill, I ... this is _my_ choice."

"You can choose again," she says, but--

"There's nothing you can do."

His face has gone ashen, his eyes dull as riverstones. 

Merrill cannot bear it.

"And if I could? Would you let me? Would you want that?" She cannot help the catch of her voice because: _Anders, Anders, you bright fool._

"I want," he starts, and then he stops, closing his eyes and turning away from her. "I do want something. From you. If you'll give it."

 _Anything,_ except she doesn't say it because she does not, she thinks, really mean it. Not _anything_. "What, then?"

"I want you to keep something for me. You can keep a secret, can't you? That's what Keepers do."

It isn't, not quite, but she can so she nods. "If you want me to, I'll do my best."

"It's nothing, really," he tells her, but she can feel the lie in it; this is something so special he holds it close, and now she really does want to know. _I thought him foolish,_ she thinks, _but I'm the real fool, aren't I?_

Still. "Tell me."

He sighs, opening his eyes and leaning in, mouth coming down to hover by her ear. "It really isn't anything. Just ... my name was Ljótr. A long time ago."

Oh! She hadn't expected-- and it _is_ something, more than anything he's ever said to her. "What does it mean?"

"I was an ugly baby," he says, leaning back, his mouth a rueful twist. "Ugly as my mother's father. That's all."

He's so close; she can feel the warmth of his chest above the cool water. "I'll keep it safe," she tells him, and his smile makes it worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, that took a while. Sorry, sorry, I had other things ...


	16. Chapter 16

Fenris gathers what he knows, and finds it very little. Carver has gone to Starkhaven on Templar business; there is no word on when he will return. Fenris would ask Sebastian's counsel in this but Sebastian is gone too, and there is no word on when _he_ will return. Isabela is little help. Starkhaven is land-locked, she tells him, and she has never been.

But she does have this. "Ask at the Gallows. Someone ought to know." And she grins. "Are you going after him, then? Ooh, I can taste the romance!"

"I will write to him," Fenris tells her, uncomfortable admitting even this much. "If he writes back, we shall see."

She gives him a considering look, rocking back on her heels. "And if he doesn't?"

He hopes-- But. "Then, again, we shall see."

He goes down to the docks, tense and restless, boards the barge, goes over, and then he spies Carver's Knight Captain in the courtyard. The man is so tall, so solid, so handsome and _human_ that it makes Fenris feel ill to look on him. But, he is the best resource Fenris has, he decides, so he goes up, plants himself in front of the man, and nods to him.

"Greetings in the Light, Knight Captain."

Cullen does not seem pleased, but perhaps that is only his face. "Greetings to you, Serrah. Do you have business in the Gallows?"

It is cold. Fenris mislikes it, but he has begun, now, so he must go on. "I understand that Ser Carver has gone to Starkhaven."

"He has." Cullen stops there, waits for Fenris to say more, his eyes narrowed and unfriendly.

"If I were to write to him," Fenris says, careful in his attempt not to say too much to this man he resents so fiercely, but Cullen's chin goes up and his glare echoes the resentment back sharp enough that Fenris breaks off.

"I do not believe that wise, Serrah."

Fenris grits his teeth, determined. "Wisdom aside, I _will_ write to him, in any case."

"Perhaps I should rephrase that." Cullen sets his shoulders, firm as a stone in the sea. "I do not believe it is necessary. There seems to me no reason for you to write to him. With all you have said, he does not need further words from you."

It is a shock. Fenris expected to be interrogated, perhaps, and to have to plead his case, but this? "What do you mean?"

"That you have done enough already. Do you disagree?"

Fenris cannot, and yet-- "There are things that remain to be said," he insists, but Cullen is shaking his head, cold and implacable.

"Have you not hurt him enough? I will not permit you to wound him further. It would be best if you left him alone."

And it is ... "That is _his_ decision and not yours, no matter the claim you hold over him."

"Carver Hawke is _my knight_ ," Cullen snaps, one hand clenching as though itching for the weight of a sword. "Do you think ..." and he pauses, glancing about the courtyard before stepping in to loom over Fenris, the way humans always do. "He has confided in me how poorly you have treated him. Maker's mercy, from the first I ever saw you, with your _hand in his chest_ , I have known you to be only a danger to him. A poison. One I wish I had cured him of long ago."

And how has Fenris not been so? What good has he ever done Carver? What mercy has he ever shown him, what warmth? And what right does he have to anything of Carver, now?

But. No. _No_.

"He is not a thing to be owned," Fenris growls, barely controlling himself because this? He knows what this is, can taste his own jealousy in the other man's words. "He is himself, and can decide for _himself_!"

"I am his _Captain_." The weight of Cullen's anger is heavy enough that Fenris has to steel himself not to step away. "If he is not mine then he is certainly not yours. Let me make myself clear," and he shifts, chin coming down, eyes dark and furious. "I will do all in my power to keep you from him. You are not welcome here. Do not come again. Ser Barker," and he steps off, gestures with his chin, his hands held in tight threats by his thighs. "Escort Serrah Fenris from the Gallows, and give notice to the dock-guard that he is not again to be permitted entry." The turn of his head is dismissive and final. "Good day, Serrah."

It is ... Fenris does not know what to say, but when Carver's friend comes in between him and the Knight Captain Fenris goes because ... what else is he to do?

Ser Barker is gentle with him, at least, does not attempt to lay hands on him, simply walks him to the dock with another knight on Fenris' other side. When they reach the docks he says, "Hugh, go give the order," sending the other knight away, and then it is just the two of them alone while Fenris ... his head is spinning. Venhedis, what did he think would happen? How else could it have gone, an elf asking a boon of a human who owes him nothing?

But Ser Barker rounds on him, that stoic face gone suddenly uncertain.

"What do you mean, with Hawke? What are your intentions?"

Fenris stares at him a moment, and then-- "I owe an apology, for my trespasses. Beyond that ... whatever he wants."

Barker searches his face, as though he could determine the truth of it by looking, and then he nods. "The Chantry in Starkhaven. If you would write to him, then that is the place."

It is unexpected, and Fenris cannot compose himself enough to say how grateful he is. "Thank-you, ser knight. I am in your debt."

"No debt, only ..." He shakes his head, looking strange about it. "Don't be an ass."

Then the other knight returns, and the two of them herd Fenris onto the barge.

When Fenris goes he doesn't look back.

* * *

The letter, when he tries to write it, proves difficult. He tries anyway, etching it into a tablet and erasing so much of it before it is ready to be copied.

 _Fenris of Ki_ r _kewall to Ca_ r _ve_ r _Hawke in Sta_ r _khaven._

 _Ca_ r _ve ___r __

_~~You will not want~~ _

_~~I sispect you do not~~ _

_~~I hope~~ _

_I hav been a fool. I owe you apology and I meen to make it when next I see you. ~~I am sory for~~ If you wil he_ r _e me out then Rite to me that I shuld know to_ r _ite again. **a** nd if not then Rite to me so that I do not _r _ite again. ~~If there is any way in which I culd~~_

_Pleas axept my apology._

_~~Yours in every~~ _

_**F** en_r _is_

It is terrible. He reads it through, agonises over it, drinks a bottle of wine despite Orana's frowns and goes to bed sick with the awfulness of his writing. Why would Carver accept this? There is no reason. Fenris is again a fool to--

In the morning he reads it over, corrects some errors, and copies it out onto a fresh sheet of parchment, with Tully in his lap clutching at the pen. The result is ... adequate.

Fenris returns Tully to the care of his mother and takes his folded missive up to the Chantry.

The sister on duty refers him to another, a tall woman with obsidian eyes. "We are not a postal service," she says, eying his feet and his ears.

Fenris grits his teeth. "I will pay for the privilege."

She hesitates, but ultimately she shakes her head. "The Chantry cannot be bribed, elf. Be about your business."

"I am a friend of Sebastian Vael," Fenris tells her in desperation, trading it like a coin, and she hesitates _again_ but again she shakes her head.

"Brother Sebastian is not available to vouch for you. Please leave."

Fenris rages. Inside himself, this time, a silent rage that takes him to Hawke because of all of them Hawke has always been most tolerant of his rages. He will wait for Hawke, he will, and perhaps his rage will have died by then, and does not Hawke send messages? Perhaps Hawke will help him send this.

When he is called in from the entryway, his host is not Hawke.

"Serrah Fenris," Leandra says, elegant as a magister in rose silk. "Do come in."

She takes him to the study, bids him sit in a chair by the hearth, has a fragrant tea poured for them both. Fenris obeys her easily. They fit together, he thinks. Neither one of them is entirely comfortable in this, but at least they are playing the same game and each knows their role in it.

"My son is not home at present. Perhaps I might entertain you?"

Fenris bows his head. "Your hospitality is much appreciated." There is so much of Carver in her face. "My thanks to you, messere."

"My hospitality is granted where it is deserved," she says, and if he did not know better it would sound so casual. "Tell me, what business do you have with my son?"

"I wish to send a letter," he tells her, because perhaps she will help him, and perhaps not, but deceiving her would be a bad beginning. "There are things unsaid between us that should not remain unsaid."

She hesitates, watching him. "Carver, then. I understood from him that you had broken with him. What further business could you have?"

She has a mother's right to ask, and Fenris must answer her. "To make amends. If he will permit me."

Her eyes are dark, so much like her eldest son, her mouth so much like her youngest, and her expression too cool for either. "And you have come here because...?"

"The Chantry will not send it for me, and I know no other way. I will pay the cost of it, I have coin," he offers, knowing it would be an insult, were he human and her equal, but knowing also what he is instead. 

She shakes her head, dismissive, and his heart sinks. "There is no need for that." She sips her tea, watching him over the rim of the delicate porcelain cup. "You have an address for him, then? In Starkhaven."

"I have been directed to send it to the Chantry there," Fenris tells her, hope flaring in his chest. Will she? She will, and the relief is dizzying. "Here," and he hands up the letter, folded and sealed with wax. It is so little, but it means so much, and he wishes now he had written more, expressed himself better, said something of use. But it is too late. 

She takes it, places it beside the tea service. "I will deal with it."

"Thank-you, messere. I cannot repay your kindness. Please, if I may be of use to you in any thing, you need only ask."

"I will keep that in mind," she tells him.

She refills his cup, they drink, and then he excuses himself, exultant in his success.

Now all he will have to do is wait for a reply. Ah, that will be worse, the waiting, but at least he has tried.

* * *

When the elf has gone, Leandra holds the letter in her lap, looking at it without seeing.

A letter for Carver. Poor Carver, baby boy, who believes himself so grown up, such a man now. But he isn't, she knows it, and he proves it over and over with the rashness of his decisions, with his thoughtlessness, his selfishness. And the selflessness he shows in the worst of ways.

He tries, she knows that, he has always tried. But he never understands the consequences of the things that he does, how easily he ruins the plans made for him by people who want only the best for him. Perhaps he learned that from her -- how _hard_ it is to say 'mother knows best' when she had so completely ignored what her own mother had felt best for her.

She regrets nothing ... she regrets only a little. If she had known that her time with Malcolm would be cut so brutally short, then, then she would have done it all the same. Charming, handsome, witty Malcolm, so strong and so earnest, and then a rock for her when times were harder than she could ever have expected. Her bright, shining hero, taking her away from a dull comfortable life for a life that was never dull nor comfortable. And she had bowed to him in all things because he knew best, he was her handsome husband, thoughtful and caring and...

Gone, now. He left her alone, though he had promised he never would. How young they were then, how naive to think they would grow old in one another's arms, in a house made for them, in a family they made for themselves.

And if her mother could have stopped them, she would have. It may have been for the best, had she done so. Young love is reckless and foolish, and perhaps Leandra would have grown past it, forgotten the blue-eyed apostate who seduced a sheltered girl so easily. Perhaps she would be Comtess de Launcet now, perhaps she would have come to love Guillaume and the children that would have followed and that she will never know. But she would have given up all this, and she does not know if it would have been worth it. Or if what she has had was worth giving up that other life, in which she may have been happy, in the end.

The letter is written on cheap paper with cheap ink, the direction on the outer leaf in such a childish hand, the wax seal stamped down with what looks like the cork of a wine-bottle, no insignia. And the elf himself, so cheap. Handsome for an elf, strong for an elf, well-mannered when he chooses and so dour other times, with his slave-armour and his scowls. 

But how he has wounded her son. Carver thinks she does not know, but she has overheard the things he has said to his brother, has pieced together from his fits and moods how the elf, this Fenris, has misused him. 

Her beautiful boy. He is unfinished, she thinks, not yet grown, still a child in so many ways. _He will grow up one day,_ she thinks, _into a wonderful man, a good husband, a proud and caring father._ If he has the time and space to do it.

How can he, with his youthful indiscretions haunting him like moths? Perhaps Starkhaven can be good for him, a little distance and room to reflect. And when he returns, she will find for him a wife meet for his needs, someone reliable, someone who understands him. As she tries to do for Garrett, who thwarts her at every opportunity, and how that _rankles_. She is _trying_. Why must he be so stubborn?

Too much of his father in him, and too much of herself. Perhaps Malcolm and she were wrong to give their children so much freedom to make their own mistakes. But they were young then, with no help, doing the best they could. And now, look. Bethany lost, Carver so damaged, Garrett just, _oh_ Garrett, willful _bloody_ Garrett. What a mess they made, with the best of intentions.

She takes the letter, and does not toss it into the fireplace. Neither does she open it, though she wants to. Instead she takes it upstairs, sets it amongst the lotions and perfumes and unguents on her vanity, tries not to look at herself in the glass.

Carver does not need it. Maybe one day she will tell him. Maybe one day he'll forgive her. But for now, she will do what is best.


	17. Chapter 17

_12th of Wintermarch, 9:35 Dragon_

_Arrived in Starkhaven. Weather continues rotten._

Carver stares at the page, not sure if any of this is worth writing down. It seems a waste of good paper.

But when Margitte gave him the book she said, "Life is a celebration of the Maker. A life dedicated to His service is a valuable one, and well spent. It seems a pity not to chronicle it."

She looked so sad that he knew she was thinking of Pax, and he was almost certain about the two of them, so he caved, took the book, and forgot about it until he reached Starkhaven and was looking for a clean shirt, and now...

He thinks a bit, and then--

 _Journey uneventful_ , he writes. The paper is so nice to write on, the ink flowing clean and neat, and he wishes his handwriting were better, to do justice to the gift.

The journey _was_ uneventful, ignoring how intolerable Tristram and Sebastian were, the whole way. It seems they are good friends. He'd thought it made sense, at least, for a Starkhaven priest and a Starkhaven templar to befriend one another, but no, that's not even true. Tristram said, first night on the ship, that he'd known Sebastian before, when Sebastian was, in his own words, 'a degenerate rake', and in Tristram's, 'more bloody fun'. They'd grown up within a mile of one another but worlds apart, neither one knowing the other until a night in a tavern brought them together.

"You were so drunk," Tristram snickered, jabbing Sebastian with an elbow. "That girl -- Maker, what was her name?"

Sebastian sighed. "To my shame, I do not remember."

"Shame? From you? _For_ shame, Valery, how many years have I known you to be utterly shameless?"

Carver looked up at Sebastian's face, saw him blush and shake his head. "I was another person, then."

Tristram leaned back, shoulders broad against the wood of the cabin wall. "The same person. Differently situated, but the same, all the same. As was I."

"I remember _that_ , at least." Sebastian grinned, catching Carver's eye. "Did you know that your respectable Knight Lieutenant was once arrested for indecency in the city square?"

Tristram laughed, a broad loud sound, and without any shame at all. "You only avoided it because you'd finished your pissing before the guard found us. One time your small bladder served you well." And he grinned, teeth white as chalk against his lip.

"And you only avoided imprisonment because I advocated for you," Sebastian countered, lounging easily on his bunk in his shirtsleeves.

"If by 'advocated' you mean you flashed your father's crest about until the poor guardsmen gave up out of sheer terror." Sebastian groaned and Tristram grabbed his sleeve, crowding against him with a familiarity that Carver envied, just a little. "Oh, that cloak! How you flourished it, like an Antivan fancy-man wooing some blowsy Starkhaven dame. Mercy, you were such a terror, then."

And Carver expected Sebastian to colour again but he didn't, only grinned, and shoved Tristram back. "And you were not? I seem to recall an evening when you scaled a fine lady's terrace--"

"So we're calling it that, are we?"

"-- only to find her in bed with her husband," Sebastian continued, undeterred, and Tristram groaned, eyes falling shut, "and were forced to make up a ludicrous story about cats to avoid a duel."

Tristram sighed, opened his eyes, and fixed Carver with a put-upon expression. "You see? The things I have to deal with."

Carver could feel his mouth making a shape that was probably disgust. "Sounds like you enjoyed yourselves, anyway."

Tristram nodded. "We _did_. Right up to the end."

Sebastian sobered at once. "Yes. And what an end it was."

They quieted then, but Tristram opened another bottle of ale and shoved it into Carver's hands. "Starkhaven's not like Kirkwall," he said, and he looked so sentimental that Carver didn't know what to do. "Proper, some ways. Easier, in others. Keep your dick out of the right people and you'll have plenty of opportunity to put it in the _wrong_ people."

Sebastian groaned, wiping his eyes with his fingers. "Don't tell him that!"

Tristram laughed; Carver drank, keeping quiet, and eventually Sebastian said it was time for prayers and bed.

Tristram scoffed at him, but knelt down easy enough and Carver did the same and Sebastian recited part of the Canticle of Trials and then they slept.

It was like that, the whole way. Tristram would say a thing and Sebastian would answer him and Carver felt like he was just an audience to them, just someone they wanted to play up to, nothing special in himself.

They landed at the mouth of the Minanter, dropped off some post at the Chantry there, picked up some other, boarded a barge for the journey upriver, and still it went on. Such bloody good friends. It eased a bit, just before they reached Starkhaven, and Tristram took Carver aside, while Sebastian settled their accounts, to tell him a thing or two.

"I know you're Cullen's favourite, but he's such a mud-stuck twit that I'll bet my block-and-tackle he never told you what to expect here." Carver bristled, not liking to hear Cullen criticised at all, but Tristram either didn't see it or ignored it. "In Starkhaven you need to swing your dick around or no-one takes you seriously. So I'm gonna do that, and I need you to be my balls. You understand?"

Carver didn't at all, and his face must have conveyed it because Tristram sighed heavily, shook his head, and poked Carver hard in the chest.

"You're just another Knight Corporal here, aye? And I'm your Lieutenant. And if I say a thing you stand by, looking big and scary, and if you've got a problem with it you hold your fucking tongue until we're alone and _then_ you gripe at me. All right, Butcher?"

Carver hated the nickname, but all his scowling hadn't had any affect on Tristram up until then so he let it go. Again. "As you say, ser."

"Oh, for the love of beautiful _snatch_." Tristram leaned in, his expression serious, for once. "None of that crap. We both know what _that_ means. I'm not your precious Cullen. I wanna hear a 'hell yeah, ser' or a 'fuck off, ser' when it's you and me, like this. Do you understand, Knight Corporal?"

Carver did, and ... he kinda liked it. "Hell yeah, ser."

"Good!" Tristram shoved him, in a friendly sort of way. "I need you, Butcher. You'll need me too, if you wanna get out of this and back to whatever the fuck you've got going on in Kirkwall."

It was the first time anyone suggested that the banishment to Stakhaven might not be permanent, so Carver took heart from it, and resolved to try, at least, to be Tristram's balls ... whatever that might mean.

And now, here they are, lounging about a tavern in Starkhaven while Tristram negotiates rooms for them in the Chantry stronghold that houses the Templars here.

Carver hates Starkhaven. It's so much worse than Kirkwall, so full of itself. Everywhere he looks there's gold paint and red lacquer and twisty bits of architecture like someone upended a giant jewellery box and called it a city. There's horses everywhere, dropping their muck in the streets, but everyone walks about with their noses so high in the air that he thinks they might not be able to smell it.

Even the food is -- what did Varric call it? -- pretentious. They do weird things with pastry, twisting it up in knots and painting it all the colours of the rainbow. He eats a pastry in the shape of a fish, his first day, that turns out to be full of dried fruit, and on his second day one in the shape of an apple that turns out to be full of fish. It makes no sense.

The wine's good. So, there's that at least.

Possibly the worst thing about Starkhaven, though, is that Tristram insists Carver stick to him like glue, dragging him through the streets of Starkhaven as he makes the arrangements for his wedding. Carver finds it all incredibly boring, and worse so because wherever Tristram goes, Sebastian also goes, and the two of them are so thick with one another that Carver wants to strangle them both.

"Remember when your father had you locked in your rooms for sicking up in the fountain?" Tristram says, and another time, "That girl who couldn't stop laughing, do you remember? And then you tumbled her sister too, you beast." And also, "And you _won_ , but you spent all the money on whores, and then you ended up needing a circle healer to get rid of the spotty evidence."

Sebastian laughs it off, or goes red, or chastises Tristram for being so flippant about it, but Tristram just goes on teasing and Sebastian never does get mad at him. Its so weird. Carver can't bear it, can't bear the nicknames, can't stand how they finish one another's stories.

And sometimes, to make things worse, someone in Starkhaven will recognise one of them. It's not so bad when it's Tristram, because usually it's Templar business or something to do with the wedding, but when it's Sebastian...

A wine-merchant curtseys low enough Carver can't quite believe how she gets back up again. A bartender refuses to take his money, waves away his protests, breaks out the good whiskey. A woman nearly bursts into tears when he smiles at her, and they can't get away until he's said a blessing over her baby.

"I told you," Tristram says, after another one of these -- a wealthy widow in a cloth cap who kisses Sebastian's hands and then makes him accept a donation to the Chantry. "Did I not tell you?"

"Just because a few people wish to pay their respects to my family doesn't mean they want to rebel against my cousin," Sebastian protests.

"Is it rebellion? When he stole your throne?"

"He stole nothing. Leave it be."

Tristram rolls his eyes. "You're blinding yourself, Valery, blinkered like a coach-horse. Do they teach you nothing in your cloister?"

"And when did you grow so political?" Sebastian asks, gently mocking, but Tristram gives him a level look.

"The Gallows is every bit as brutal as one of your mother's tea-parties. I had to survive it somehow."

For some reason Sebastian glances at _Carver_ , and he frowns a little. "Dangerous, then."

They keep doing that, too, that glance at one another, glance at Carver, back at each other thing. Sometimes Tristram smirks. Sebastian just makes this concerned face and then, three days after they've arrived and Carver's _still_ not been assigned a bunk in the Templar barracks, Sebastian asks to borrow Carver for the morning.

"You've not seen my family's chapel. I thought it might interest you."

Carver bites his tongue on the comment that nothing could possibly sound more boring, and goes along in a sulk.

It's a nice chapel, attached to the palace grounds but open to the public (when the public is one Corporal of the Order and one Chantry Brother with a Vael nose). Sebastian explains how his great-great-grandfather commissioned this icon, and how his great-aunt sewed these cloths, but Carver looks up and once he sees it he can't unsee it.

"Your Andraste," he says out loud, "looks like Isabela."

Sebastian stops, stares at him. "What?"

"Look at her. She's all," and he definitely _does not_ make suggestive hand-gestures about the Maker's Bride, "curvy." She really is. "I've never seen a brown Andraste before."

Sebastian looks aghast, and then looks up, and -- okay, that's definitely a blush. "She's modelled on one of my ancestors."

She has black-lacquered hair and bright aquamarine eyes, and her skin is polished rosewood and, well, brown. She's a good Andraste too, beautiful and lively, with a bit of a smile to her lips, hands clasped loosely in her lap, arms framing the fairly lush expanse of her bosom. "Bet she was distracting, during sermons."

Sebastian's definitely beetroot now. Carver's never seen him so flustered. He clears his throat. "Yes, well." Carver isn't entirely sure what the mix of expressions at war on Sebastian's face actually means, but it settles into something unpleasantly like pity. "Hawke. I have wanted to talk to you, ever since I heard about the untimely passing of your friend Ser Paxley."

It's such a sucker-punch. Carver tries not to flinch, just sets his jaw and looks away. "Yeah?"

There's a hand on his arm. He feels his armour shift with it but, of course, there's too much plate and padding for anything more. "You asked me once to recommend a canticle for your contemplation. If I might serve you again in that regard, or if you would that I hear your confession--"

"Confession?" Carver rounds on him, suddenly furious. "You want my bloody confession?"

"If it would give you comfort," Sebastian says, tucking his hands together, with one of his rotten smiles that make him look like one of those fucking icons on the wall. "Sometimes it can help."

"Yeah, okay. How about this? Pax died because I fucked up. There. Sodding _there_ , Sebastian. It's my fault and I know it and _everybody_ knows it, and you know what? I don't want to talk about it."

The awful compassion on Sebastian's face hurts him deeper than any censure could. "You are not to blame for a Harrowing gone awry. You did your duty, I am certain."

"No, I didn't." Carver takes a deep breath. "He was my sodding knight and my _duty_ was to make sure he didn't get his throat torn out by a Maker-damned abomination. And I failed him." It sticks in his throat; it's all true. Maker forgive him. "You can't understand."

"Then Tristram, perhaps, would understand."

"Tristram doesn't give a rut in the void about me. I'm just baggage he has to carry because the Knight Captain doesn't want me anymore." That too hurts to admit, but he does it because he deserves to hurt, for this at least.

"I do not believe that to be true, in either case." Sebastian tilts his head, watching Carver with those pitying eyes. Carver wishes he could hit him. "Tristram has told me your Captain gave him instruction to care for you until you were ready to return. That does not, to me, sound as though he is done with you yet."

Carver can't bear it. "For fuck's sake," he starts, but there's a noise behind him, the jingle of chain, and Sebastian's eyes dart up to look past Carver's shoulder.

Carver turns. A squad of guards in Starkhaven colours have come in, headed by a woman whose better armour marks her as their officer. She's swarthy, older, with a nose that looks twice-broken and only serves to make her seem grim and dangerous. She nods to Sebastian, and Carver, in that order. "Brother Sebastian. Ser Templar. If you would come with me, the Prince of Starkhaven would like a word with you."

So, this. Carver's been half-expecting it, ever since they docked in Starkhaven. Sebastian's waved off all his concern in this regard, and even now he looks mildly surprised rather than worried about it.

"Well met, Yseine," Sebastian says, his voice even. "Lieutenant, I should say. It has been a while since you've dragged me before a Prince."

"Not long enough," she says gruffly, and her hands plant firmly on her hips. "Would that I had never had to again."

Sebastian nods, smiling. "You need not. We mean no harm, here. You could simply escort us from the grounds."

"Alas, my orders will not permit me." She doesn't look particularly 'alas' about it. "Don't try your smiles, little prince. They've never worked before and won't now."

"Then, of course. You have your orders. Do they include binding my hands, this time? Or is my cousin more lenient than my father?"

Carver wants to curse him out for even suggesting it, but the woman simply shakes her head. "I've no orders regarding _that_. If you insist, though, I'll oblige."

Sebastian chuckles; again it makes Carver want to hit him. Bloody Sebastian and his bloody stupid face. "I think my companion might take it amiss, if you did."

Hah. No. "Tie him up if you like," Carver says, still annoyed with him. "No skin off my nose."

That at least makes Sebastian frown. "My mistake. Best I come quietly, then. Ser Carver, you'll find your way back to the inn on your own, I assume?"

But the woman shakes her head again. "He's to come too. If you please, ser knight?"

The look she gives him is level but not threatening, and really, against her squad what other choice does he have? "I'll come. If I must."

The woman, Lieutenant Yseine, resists Sebastian's attempts to draw her out on the walk up to the palace, answering him curtly where she does answer, and deflecting his queries when she doesn't. They learn very little: the Prince wishes to see them; his business is his own; he is himself and whether or not that means he is in a mood is neither here nor there. She's brisk and professional, and though Carver has reservations about this meeting he says nothing, does nothing to invite her anger, tries to keep an eye out for dangers along the way. And for an escape, should it be needed. Garrett always accused him of being unobservant, but Garrett doesn't know everything, for all he pretends. Carver can plan, he's pretty sure. Just ... right now there's nothing to work with.

The palace is like the rest of Starkhaven, stuck about with flashy decorations that put Kirkwall Keep to shame. Carver doesn't gawp like a hayseed; he's spent enough time buggering about the keep to shrug it all off, and he doesn't much care for any of it, anyway. Fenris, he thinks -- and then he doesn't think about Fenris, except that Fenris would probably glean a multitude of things from the short walk up, in, down a corridor and through an archway. Fenris would probably work out the colour of the Prince's liver just from the wealth he surrounds himself with. Fenris ... no.

The Prince, when they meet him, is sitting on a flashy chair -- a throne, really -- in a flashy room, and is dressed in flashy bloody clothes that glitter when he leans forward to glare at them. He's older, gaunt, but still there's enough of Sebastian in his face that Carver can see the family resemblance at once. Carver's not sure if he's supposed to bow, but he never bowed to the Viscount (Maker rest him) and, anyway, Sebastian doesn't. All Sebastian does is fold his hands, and nod respectfully.

"Cousin," he says. "You are looking well."

Carver salutes, Kirkwall style, not eager to salute anyone the way he does Cullen, and settles into parade rest, trying not to look as though he thinks there's a chance they might not be getting out of here in one piece.

The Prince scowls. "Sebastian. Pardon me, _Brother_ Sebastian. I did not expect to see you in Starkhaven. Ever again."

"It is my home. Of course I should visit."

"I should have thought your exile would have made it obvious to you that you are not welcome here," the Prince says sharply. "I can only assume that you have returned to cause your usual disruptions."

"Exiled, you say?" Sebastian's tone is even, unhurried, as though they are simply discussing the weather. "I do not believe my father ever put pen to a decree of exile. I am a son of Starkhaven, still, whatever sins I have committed."

The Prince frowns, glances at the hawk-faced woman standing by his side, a ledger open on the lectern before her. "Marilyn, give me the facts."

This Marilyn shows nothing in her face, simply flips through her papers with a grim expression. "Certainly not exiled, your Highness. Sent away, certainly. Brother Sebastian is still a son of Starkhaven."

Sebastian smiles, says nothing, tucks his hands behind his back and slouches a little. Carver ... does not hate him for it. There is something about the Prince -- Goran Vael, he reminds himself -- that puts him in mind of Garrett. So superior. So righteous. And the way he speaks to Sebastian--

"Do you mean to challenge me?"

"No." Sebastian sounds so honest. "There is no place in the governing of Starkhaven for a Chantry Brother."

"There is no place in Starkhaven for an unwanted heir, either." Prince Goran looks sour, taps his fingers on the arm of his throne, contemplating Sebastian. "What is your business here, Sebastian?"

"Only to officiate my friend's wedding," Sebastian says. The Prince glances at Carver, and Sebastian must see it because he shakes his head. "Not Ser Carver. Knight Lieutenant Tristram. You remember him, Seneschal? Tristram MacFarris?"

The woman with the ledger makes a pained expression. "Indeed. MacFarris," she says in an aside to the Prince, "was given to the Templar Order at the same time young Sebastian was given to the Chantry. His other option was imprisonment, if I recall correctly. And now he is a Lieutenant?" She makes a note on a slate. "And engaged to be married?"

"As I understand it," Sebastian agrees. "To no-one of note, however."

The Senechal marks her slate, not looking up. "And your companion? Ser Carver?"

Carver grinds his teeth, not liking any of this, but before he can decide whether or not he ought to answer, Sebastian does it for him. "Carver Hawke. Of the Kirkwall Amells." And before Carver realises it's going to happen, he adds, "Younger brother of the Champion of Kirkwall, and second cousin to the Hero of Ferelden."

She does look up then, but Carver can't read her face. "Hnh. Very well." She makes another note, rather longer than the last. That can't be good.

The Prince, however, looks displeased. "How fortunate for you."

Sebastian's smile is ... not like his usual smiles, a little too knowing, and it looks odd on his face. "The Maker favours me with fortune beyond what I deserve."

"Truer words never spoken." The Prince glares at them both. "I find myself in a lenient mood. So, I offer you a bargain, Sebastian. You may leave the grounds, remain within the city walls for the duration of your friend's nuptials, and then depart Starkhaven and not return again without my express permission. In advance."

Carver lets out a breath despite himself; Sebastian nods. "At what price, cousin?"

"That you abdicate any claim to the throne. In writing." He gestures, and the seneschal summons a clerk with a lap desk and another with a chair. "I assume you find these terms agreeable. Given the alternatives."

Sebastian takes a seat, accepts the desk, and picks up a quill. "As you wish it. How shall I write it? 'I, Brother Sebastian of the Chantry, hereby renounce all claim to Starkhaven and her surrounds in favour of Goran Vael, from this day forth' -- what is the date, please?" The clerk tells him and Sebastian writes it down in his elegant, curly hand, and signs it with the same ridiculous flourish of ink Carver has seen him make before. "There. Shall I have the good Knight Corporal witness it?"

The Prince frowns at them both. "Do so."

Carver leans down, writes his name (with considerably less flourishing) and then Sebastian is standing, making an elaborate and boring farewell to his cousin, and they are escorted away.

When they're outside the gates-- "Maker's breath, Sebastian! What the -- I told you so! You're lucky," _you smarmy git_ , "we could have ended up in a sodding _cell_."

Sebastian grins at him. "I would have, if not for you."

"Me? I didn't do a rutting _thing_!"

"Your presence, alone, saved me from a worse fate. Whatever else Goran may be, he is not foolish enough to risk war with Kirkwall."

"I don't think locking us up would have done _that_ ," Carver scoffs, but Sebastian fixes him with a wry look.

"No? You believe your brother loves you so little he would allow such a thing happen with no repercussions?"

Well ... yeah. Maybe. "S'not like he's Viscount, or anything."

"I think, should it have proven necessary, he might have _become_ Viscount to do so." Sebastian tugs Carver into the crowd. "Come on. This deserves a drink, don't you think?"

Carver's not sure at all, and later, in his cups (and drinking with Sebastian is weird beyond the other weirdness of the day) he moans that, "Always, fucking _always_ it's about Garrett. Never about me. No matter what I do."

Sebastian lifts his cup, eyeing Carver over the rim of it. "I hear you there. Always it was so for me, with Emmet." He sighs, drains his cup, and sets it down with a sharp clack. "But he lies in ashes now, and I would give anything to change that. I pray you never have reason to feel the same."

Because Sebastian's family is dead, and enough of Carver's family is dead for him to feel instantly wretched about it all. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"No need, friend." Sebastian reaches up to brush the hair from his brow, and closes his eyes. Carver wonders what he sees behind his lids. "In life I hated him. In death ... I have nothing but regret where he is concerned. For both my brothers. Ach, Mathinder ... did I ever tell you how my second brother used to plague me? He soaked my bowstrings in wine, tied the laces of my boots into knots, tattled on me, constantly, to my parents. Mother favoured him. And I thought no-one favoured me." He opens his eyes, fixing them on Carver. "You are fortunate in that, at least. To be your mother's favourite."

"Not even," Carver says, because it's not true. "As if."

"Aye? Your brother has complained often enough that you have the dragon's share of her love. That you are permitted things he is not. Imagine if your brother had joined the Order."

"He's a mage," Carver argues. "No chance of that."

"But were he not, and he did."

"Don't know about 'maybes'." Carver can't imagine what it might have been like, if Bethany had been the only mage amongst them. "He'd have charmed her over, all the same."

"Perhaps. But, in any case, she gives you leash enough to pursue your own lovers, never tries to match you with an appropriate bride." Sebastian reaches for the flask, pours a little more whisky into his cup. "Even when I was ... what I was. My mother made every effort to find me a suitable woman who might give our family greater prestige. But your mother? I remember how she welcomed Fenris. An elf. And a man. I remember how she tried to make him another son, though not of her choosing." He sighs, sketches a circle in the spilled drink on the tavern table. "My mother would _never_. Would have never. Never did."

There is a wealth of history in those words, and Carver suddenly wants to know, but ... but it's none of his business. So, he goes back a step. "Maybe my mother doesn't think I could _get_ one. A fancy wife, I mean. I'm just a templar. Not anything, really."

"You're enough," Sebastian tells him, eyes gone sad and glossy. "She has a great and abiding love for you."

The look on his face makes Carver feel ... guilty? Is that it? His mother does love him, and the thought that Sebastian's might not have loved him sits sour in his belly.

They drink on, laugh at things that aren't funny, until Tristram shows up to ferry Sebastian to bed and Carver is left alone to think.

She does, his mother. Augh, his thoughts are a mess. But she does, he knows, and always has. So, at least there's that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think Sebastian's brothers have names in canon. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.


	18. Chapter 18

"You like elves," the demon says, lounging on the couch picking at the upholstery with his claws. His horns are big tonight, great curled things that glow a little in the dim familiarity of this room. "Why not get yourself an elf? It can't be difficult."

Down on the floor before the hearth, Carver frowns over the blacksmith's puzzle in his hands. The bits of metal won't come apart, and every time he thinks they might they seem to shift under his fingers, complex and frustrating. " _Get_ one? Fuck that."

The demon sighs, shifts his claws to Carver's hair; Carver pulls away but when he settles back the claws are there again, patiently knotting and unknotting. "I wouldn't mind, you know. If you found someone to pour yourself into."

"As if I care what you mind," Carver scoffs, giving up on the puzzle and tossing it aside. "Like I give a shit what you think of me."

"But you do," the demon insists, tugging a little. Carver sits up straight, leans back on the couch, lets his hair be braided, _wants_ his hair braided, no matter what he might say. And, of course, the demon always knows. "You're a funny one, little Templar. You hate me, but you tolerate me. Because, I suppose, no-one else tolerates you."

Carver shakes his head, hair pulling sharp against his scalp; the demon hisses, yanks him back into place, and Carver goes because ... well, he doesn't know. "That's not true."

"You know it is. I only know it because you know it." 

And it _is_ true, but-- "I don't want to hear you say it."

"Then I won't, again." The claws go back to their braiding, and the feeling is familiar and welcome, someone touching him the way he wants to be touched. "Still, I don't mind. You have _desires_ , after all. If you don't indulge them they'll just bottle up, and we'll be right back where we started."

It's slightly surprising. Carver tilts his head back, looks up, those violet eyes so much brighter than anything else in his dreams. "Isn't that what you want? For me to get so worked up I let you fuck me?" And all the rest, which he knows would happen if he did.

"That's never worked before," the demon says, wry with it, and Carver frowns because ... he hasn't has he? "I'm content to be your friend, for now. I think you need a friend more than a lover."

"We're not friends," Carver says, but the demon just sighs and holds up a mirror, summoned from nowhere.

"What do you think?"

Carver looks. His hair is longer, here in his dreams, and the braids are ... he looks like a man, the way men were measured back in Ferelden, a grown man with a beard and _braids_. He likes it. "Pretty good," he says reluctantly, but then-- "We're _not_ friends. Don't think we are," he warns.

The demon tugs one of his braids, laying cheek-down on the back of one hand and smiling that sharp, saw-edged smile. "If you insist. But I'm the only friend you have."

And that, at least, Carver can't deny.

* * *

"Aren't you going to shave, to meet my bride?" Tristram asks, chucking his fingers under Carver's chin. "She deserves it, you know. She's a _lady_."

"She won't care if I'm clean there," Carver says, pulling away. Tristram grins at him, shaking his head. "She really fucking won't. She'll just like you better, for being shaved. Maybe I'll make you look good, ser."

"Oh- _ho_ ," and Tristram waggles his eyebrows. "I'll always look better next to you, no matter how hard you try."

Carver sulks over his porridge in the common room of the inn. None of it means anything, anyway. Just Tristram being an ass, as usual.

After breakfast they go down, the three of them, into the poor quarter of Starkhaven. A little girl with tight braids tugs Carver's sleeve and says, "Please, serrah," and he gives her a coin because, well, of course he fucking does.

Tristram rolls his eyes. "You'll empty your purse, that way."

But Sebastian, who has given coin to every beggar they've met, just smiles at Carver and Carver feels ... okay about it.

When they reach the house, a wretched thing with weeds grown up around the entryway, Carver isn't sure what to expect. Tristram bangs on the door before slamming it open. "Ho, woman! Do you have a kiss for your husband-to-be?"

"Why don't you come looking?" someone calls back, and the wash of feminine laughter that follows it is lovely, really.

They go in. The kitchen is full of people, all of them women, and one of them pinches Tristram's cheek.

"Hey, boy-oh! Brought us some treats, have you?"

Carver stands back, finds a corner, just watches as the ladies here fuss over his Knight Lieutenant and almost as much over Sebastian. They're all nice ladies, all dressed somewhere between civvies and armour, and every one of them looks sharp enough to cut a man with only her eyes.

A few of them are armed. One, a woman twice his age, pats Carver affectionately on the arse. "Pretty friends you have, Trish. Tell me this one ain't married yet."

Carver blushes, and the ladies laugh, and it's ... nice. Even though he feels self-conscious when they start arguing over how pretty he might be out of his armour.

"Let the lad alone," Tristram says, his face all mock-stern but his tone something else entirely. "He's practically _virginal_ , don't sully him."

"Oh, I don't know." A well-muscled woman with bright red hair winks at Carver from across the room. "Don't look unsullied to me. Give him half a glass, if he is, and he won't be any longer, in any case."

They laugh. Carver feels his face heat, and then he grins. "Yeah, ser, just gimme a minute."

He feels included this time when they laugh, and next he knows he has a handful of cakes and someone has kissed his cheek. Nice. Maybe this won't be the worst, after all.

"Where's my lady-love?" Tristam demands, hands on hips in the middle of the room. He's in his element here, loud and cheerful and well-liked, but then perhaps _Starkhaven_ is his element, right for him in a way Kirkwall wasn't quite. "Where are you wenches hiding her?"

"She's practicing out the back," the red-haired woman says, and Tristram marches to the back door, yanking it open to look out.

Carver peers over his shoulder. There's a small courtyard, strewn about with refuse, and in the cleared middle of it a tall woman with long legs all wrapped up in functional leathers is sparring with a shorter one in a thigh-baring kilt, though is it really sparring when they have naked blades in each hand? They're both good, and Carver just watches for a bit, impressed by their speed and how easily they dodge one another's strikes.

Tristram, though, turns to scowl back at the ladies in the kitchen. "Who the _fuck_ is that?"

"Rodrigo," someone calls back. "She brought him back from Antiva for the wedding."

Carver looks again and, oh, the shorter figure is a man, an elf, with sun-gold hair to his shoulders, and now he knows Carver's embarrassed for getting that wrong.

Tristram looks dire for a moment, but then he relaxes, striding out into the yard. "I leave you alone for six months and you take up with an _elf_? Maker's _balls_ , woman!"

The pair break off, the woman turning an arch look on Tristram, sheathing one knife but flipping the other in her hand in a way that does not seem exactly inviting. "'Woman' me again, Templar. Go on, I _dare_ you."

He laughs, sweeps her a bow, and says, "My _lady_. My heartsworn."

She smirks, flicking her hair out of her eyes. "Well, that's better. Do I get a kiss, then?"

"Put that knife away and you can have all the kisses you desire," Tristram promises, and she does, and he wraps an arm around her waist to tug her into ... okay, they're kissing, a _lot_ , and Carver looks away, embarrassed.

The elf chuckles, sheathing his blades, and cocks an eyebrow at Carver. "Young love. So precious, no?"

Carver makes a face, but is rescued by Tristram bellowing for Sebastian to come out and meet his bride.

"Xavia my love, this is Sebastian Vael. Brother in the Chantry but don't let that fool you, he's a menace when he wants to be. And this is my Knight Corporal, Carver Hawke. He'll be coming to the wedding," he adds, though it's the first Carver's heard of that and he's rather surprised. He hadn't realised all this running around after Tristram had a point to it. 

Sebastian bows over her hand, says something charming and meaningless, and Carver tips her a salute because he doesn't know what else to do.

Xavia gives Sebastian a curious look, but the gaze she sweeps over Carver seems to take him apart, as if measuring him for a suit of armour. "Well met, Vael, Hawke. Be welcome." She has a slight Antivan accent, and beautiful tilted eyes the same warm brown as her skin, and her hair is ruddy but otherwise it could be Ruvena's, short and functional as it is. It suits her, like her leathers suit her, and Carver isn't particularly surprised when Tristram informs him that Xavia is with a mercenary company, and that the women in the kitchen are sister-mercenaries with her there.

"But I do not know you, serrah," Tristram adds, turning on the elf with one arm still possessively wrapped around his bride.

The elf grins, making an elaborate bow. "Rodrigo," he says, eyes glittering with mischief. "And we have not met, serrah, but I feel I know you already from the marvellous tales our lovely Xavia has told of you."

Xavia snorts. "Enough of that, you wretch. Be nice to the man I'm thinking of wedding."

"I am being nice," Rodrigo protests, and--

" _Thinking?_ " Tristram looks affronted. "Surely your mind is made up by now. I gave you six months!"

Xavia laughs, patting Tristram's cheek. "Don't count the fish on your line 'til it's on the deck, boy-oh. I could slip your hook, even now."

Tristram splutters, and Sebastian catches Carver's arm. "Let us leave these fine lovers to their reunion. I believe one of the other ladies promised us spiced meat rolls."

So Carver follows him back into the kitchen, and the elf comes too, sauntering like a cat in amongst a roomful of merry pigeons, who have broken out the wine and are toasting anything they seem to think worthy of it. They toast the promised couple, the Maker's Bride, and Sebastian's arse, which makes Sebastian chuckle, red-faced, and Carver leans against a wall and--

It's good. 

There's an argument going on; apparently a dance has been planned the morrow, for the wedding, and whosoever Xavia chooses to represent her is a matter of some honour. Carver watches them bicker about it, stuffing his face with meaty pastries, and thinks himself outside it all until someone asks him if he's been practicing.

"Me?" He swallows his mouthful, washes it down with some wine. "I can't _dance_ ," he says.

The ladies laugh, and tease him hard enough that he gets the impression that he _will_ have to dance, and represent Tristram in this. And that it's _important_. Oh, no fucking _way_.

"No, I really can't,"' Carver insists, but none of them listen, and ... fuck no.

There's a hand on his shoulder, and he looks around. Rodrigo grins at him, sat up on a counter with his feet swinging free. "Do not worry," he says, eyes glittering like polished amber. He has a tattoo on his face that Carver likes, and has to look away from because he likes it too much. "If need be, I will dance for the groom. If, indeed, you are such a poor dancer. Which I doubt very much."

Carver settles back, meets the elf's eye, and says, "'Really, though. I can't dance. I've tried."

Rodrigo smirks at him, and he is so ... Carver clears his throat, awkward about it, but Rodrigo grins in a way that is really ... "Perhaps I could teach you."

Is that ...? But no. Carver shrugs. "Dunno if I can _be_ taught. People have tried."

"Perhaps they have not been, ah, hands-on about it," he says, gaze raking down Carver's chest to his crotch and ... okay, maybe that's exactly what it looks like. 

Carver fails not to blush, and takes a sip of his wine to cover it. Rodrigo, though, smirks to show exactly what he thinks of that.

Eventually, Tristram comes back in, distributes kisses amongst the ladies, bids Xavia an extravagantly fond farewell, and Carver follows him back out into the street.

"What now?" Carver asks. It's noon, but they are none of them hungry after all the food they've had pressed on them, and Carver thinks surely, _surely_ everything is arranged. What else could be left to do?

"Now," Tristram tells him, grinning like a madman, "we kiss my bachelordom goodbye. Valery, what do you say?" He arches an eyebrow at Sebastian in a way that is frankly worrying. "Shall we go back to the beginning? The Sodden Wench?"

Sebastian groans, which isn't at all reassuring, palming his face and then dragging the hand away to gesture dramatically. "Have we not been barred from there?"

"Years past," Tristram argues. "They'll let us in. We've coin enough for it."

So they go.

The Sodden Wench is a dive to put the Hanged Man to shame. The beer is rotten, the patrons worse, and Carver's glad he's got his sword even if Tristram talked him out of his armour that morning. They drink, even Sebastian drinks, and they chew bits of meat jerky in between pints, and just as Carver starts to enjoy himself Tristram declares it's time to move on.

It sets the tone for the afternoon, Tristram flirting madly with the girls working the room and ordering booze upon booze until Carver is really fucking drunk. Tristram collects whores everywhere they go, palming them off on Carver and Sebastian when they get too frisky, and tipping them all wildly whenever the three men slouch off to somewhere else. It's just as well; Sebastian politely refuses the girls' attention whenever it's shoved his way, and Carver doesn't (really) want any of them, but they're working, and it's not polite to waste their time.

They end up shooting whiskey with a dark-haired Orlesian woman Carver is pretty sure must be a pirate -- she reminds him of Varric, somehow, with her storytelling and her wry laughter, and if Carver cared enough he might worry that Tristram's going to take her up on her offer of a warm berth on her ship.

But Tristram just kisses her hand, telling her he's marrying 'the most wonderful woman in all of Thedas' in the morning, and she laughs too, bringing out the cards, and proceeds to relieve Tristram of several sovereigns.

There's something different about Starkhaven-by-night, something Carver can't quite put his finger on, drunk as he is. Tristram walks into a place and everyone looks at him as if he's something special, and at Carver too, when he thinks about it. They're obviously Templars, in their robes, and obviously Kirkwallian, but still...

He realises, somewhere around his ninth pint and who-knows-how-many shots of whiskey, that Starkhaven _likes_ Templars. And Chantry Brothers too, if the Brother isn't sermonising and is instead laughing his arse off while tossing darts at a board and tipping back drinks like a sailor. Starkhaven, for all her snootiness, is happy for them to piss on into the evening, makes space for them, welcomes them in a way Kirkwall never did.

Carver likes it. It makes him feel bigger, bolder, relaxed. He flirts with a girl who looks a bit like Peaches -- oh, beautiful, impossible-to-woo Peaches -- and tries to piggy-back Tristram between taverns, which goes terribly and ends with them both in the gutter, laughing fit to burst.

Eventually, though, Sebastian calls an end to it, wavery and loose like Carver's never seen him. "Enough! You rogues, enough. Don't forget, Trish, we must catch your bride at dawn."

"Catch?" Carver can't even walk straight anymore, hangs off Sebastian's shoulder because his fucking feet don't work right. "What, isshefuckingrunning? Hah!"

But the look Sebastian gives him-- " _Oh_. You don't know?" And he hugs Carver up to whisper too loudly in his ear. "They'll fight us, when we come for her. It's tradition."

" _What?_ " Carver blinks blearily, thick with booze and confused. "Whaddayou mean?"

"The women," and Sebastian stops in the street, holding Carver up but, perhaps, holding himself up against Carver. "Starkhaven women are tough enough, but Xavia's friends? Oh, they'll bruise you, no question."

"What the fuck are you _talking_ about?"

But Sebastian doesn't tell him; Tristram agrees to be dragged back to their inn, and by the time Carver flops into bed he's forgotten about it all.

When Sebastian wakes him, in the dark, Carver's still drunk and grouses at him to fuck off.

Sebastian chuckles. "I told you. I warned you to slow down, but you would not listen." Carver shoves at him, but Sebastian lifts the water jug. "Shall I douse you? I can, if you'd like."

"How are you _alive_ right now?" Carver grumbles, and Sebastian chuckles, gesturing with the jug. 

"Because I had the good sense to drink only small ale and watered wine, last night. Now, will you rouse, or must I help you?"

Carver gets up, washes because Sebastian makes him, dresses because Sebastian makes him, and staggers out into the pre-dawn because Sebastian is an _arsehole_.

"What are we _doing_?" Carver moans, because it's fucking cold and fucking _early_.

Tristram, at least, is a wreck, but he squares his shoulders and smacks his palm against Sebastian's in an unnecessarily loud clatter. "Let's go get my _bride_!" he shouts, and Sebastian shushes him because, okay, it's not even sunrise yet and the workerfolk in the streets give them sour and intolerant looks.

Sebastian explains along the way, and Carver stops, very much confused by it all.

"Kidnapping?"

Sebastian grins, tugging on Carver's sleeve. "It's a game. They'll let us take her, in the end, but we must _play_ at the kidnapping, all the same." It's ... weird, and when Carver says as much Sebastian looks at him as though he's grown horns. "How do you do it in Ferelden?"

"Just weave flowers in each other's hair," Carver tells him, working hard to keep his feet.

Sebastan makes a low sound in his throat. "Too easy. In Starkhaven you have to _work_ for your bride," and Carver thinks, _In Ferelden you don't have to, because she already said yes._

Still, they stagger up to the house in the poor quarter, Tristram distributing coin and sugared almonds to anyone he sees as though it's his duty, and then he puts a hand to his mouth, gesturing for Sebastian and Carver to come up behind him.

"Back entrance, eh Valery? Butcher?"

Sebastian, who dressed himself in clean white clothing this morning and insisted Carver do the same, unlimbers his stick ... it's strange to see him handle a stick of wood like a club, and Carver remembers that he's been armed the same, just a stick wrapped in leather, powdered with red for some reason.

"Let's go," Sebastian whispers, but then he catches Carver's arm. "Try not to hurt anyone," he says, but then he's let Carver go and--

Later, standing in the beer garden of a tavern next to an arch woven over with bright scraps of cloth, Carver reflects that they were lucky, really, to get out of it so easily. The women had been waiting for them, and Carver's got bruises all over now because _none_ of them pulled their strikes. The powder had a purpose, in the end -- he's certainly covered with it, and a few of Xavia's lady friends have great splotches of colour blooming like wounds on their tunics. People keep laughing when they see him, when they see Sebastian just as 'bloodied' and Tristram a walking mess. But the laughter is merry rather than cruel, and for Tristram at least it seems to be a badge of some honour, that he managed to hoist Xavia over his shoulder and flee with her into the courtyard despite his drubbing.

He wouldn't have, if Xavia hadn't permitted him to carry her off. The whole thing seems to Carver fairly barbaric, but everyone's happy and jolly and maybe it's the brightness of the morning and the excitement in the air, but he's already forgiven Starkhaven for waking him early with the grandmother of hangovers.

And maybe his gratitude is really for Rodrigo, who took pity on Carver when he found him groaning in a corner with his head in his hands. Rodrigo chuckled, and offered up a bottle. "Here, my friend. Un-ruin yourself."

"Drinking more won't help," Carver grumbled, but Rodrigo grinned at him.

"A potion, to rejuvenate you. There is more drinking to be done, today, and you will want to rise to the occasion, no?"

Carver drank it, and immediately felt better. So, maybe Rodrigo's all right, all things considered.

He does keep grinning at Carver, in a way that Carver thinks he likes.

The ceremony is short, just Sebastian taking their vows and reciting part of the Canticle of Songs, and it's one Carver's not paid much attention to in the past but now it seems fitting, just right for two people vowing to share their burdens in this world, to strive together for happiness. _My beloved is mine and I am his/ He browses among the lilies/ Until the day breaks/ and the shadows flee._ Tristram vows to be her sword-and-shield and Xavia vows to guard his back, and it's nice, all of it. Maybe one day ... but Carver would have to have someone of his own for that, and the thought is bittersweet enough to make him swallow, definitely not emotional about it all.

Tristram and Xavia do look so much in love, though. He wishes, and wishes he had something to wish for.

There's food after, and gift-giving, and many a joke about fertility and vigour; Xavia isn't the kind of bride to blush, instead she makes a few choice comments of her own that send her friends into stitches. And there's wine, too, flowing like water, and every joke or story requires a toast, and Carver is grateful again to Rodrigo for the potion.

Rodrigo sits with him for most of it, his thigh warm against Carver's, but still it isn't until the dancing begins that Carver really sees him for what he is.

Carver manages to beg off dancing, and Rodrigo volunteers to dance for Tristram in his stead. Tristram seems grim about it until Xavia complains that it isn't fair for Rodrigo to dance _against_ her, at which point Tristram seems to change his mind.

The dancing isn't anything like Carver was expecting. They go at it in teams, Xavia and two of her friends against the men, and it's less like a dance and more like a battle where they attempt to outdo one another, spinning faster, kicking higher. Tristram does well for himself, Sebastian equally so (unfair, fucking unfair, because _of course_ Sebastian's good at this, why must he be?) but Rodrigo dances like he fights, quick and deadly, and Carver watches him with this growing disquiet in his belly. He's so handsome, so lithe, and when they break he glances over his shoulder to find Carver, arching an eyebrow.

Oh shit. He's fucking gorgeous, and he keeps _flirting_.

Carver gets comfortably drunk and tries to be philosophical about it all. It's a wedding, and he's surrounded by attractive people with good bodies, all of them young and fit and dangerous. And it's been a while since Kirkwall, since Ruvena's surprising farewell, and he's been sharing a room with a fucking priest so he's a bit pent up in himself. Of course he's itchy, of course he'd like some. But it doesn't mean he'll just throw himself at the first person who asks, does it?

When Rodrigo finds him, trying to get a bit of clarity in the cool air of the tavern stableyard, Rodrigo grins, holding out a bottle to top up Carver's cup. It's dark now, the stars out overhead, the air crisp and as fresh-as-it-can-be in a stable, and Carver lets Rodrigo refill him, holding up his cup in a toast. "To the happy couple."

Rodrigo drinks straight from the bottle (and how familiar is _that_?) but then he tilts his head, and his eyes are just ... "You do not look happy. How could that be, with such wonderful company?" His smile is too handsome; Carver can't deny it.

"I'm happy for _them_ ," he says, meaning it. It's just that ... He's never happy, these days, but he can't explain that to a stranger. "I'm happy enough."

"Hmmm. I very much doubt that." Rodrigo leans in to top up Carver's cup, which doesn't need it, and he's close enough that Carver can smell leather and sweat on him, and that other thing, the elf thing, the thing he doesn't want to think about because then he'll have to admit that he misses it. "Perhaps I could make you happy, for just a little while."

He looks up, sly and inviting, and Carver...

Oh, who is he kidding? 

When Rodrigo lifts the bottle to drink from it Carver watches the bob of his throat as he swallows, and the sudden rush of desire in his gut makes him reach up to push the bottle away, his hand dropping to Rodrigo's jaw to hold him still.

Everything tastes like wine, but the clever flick of Rodrigo's tongue against his lip is sweeter than any of it. 

It doesn't mean anything, Carver knows that, but still Rodrigo is warm and welcome and Carver wants him.

When he pulls away he grins again and, fuck, Carver wants that grin, wants to see it shatter into something better.

"I have a room, upstairs," Rodrigo offers, and Carver nods, lets himself be tugged, goes easily because ... there's nothing wrong with this, no-one at home to care, no-one at the wedding to be disappointed in him. They sneak (badly, in Carver's case) through the common room and up the stairs and behind a door, and then--

Rodrigo puts his bottle down, perches up on the edge of the table, and holds out a hand. "Come to me."

Carver goes. He goes to his knees because he wants to, _fuck_ , how he _wants_ to, fumbling Rodrigo's trousers open and admiring him because the contents of his pants are firm and _admirable_.

Rodrigo stops him, though, before he can put lip to it, just a hand in Carver's hair but so firm, holding him still.

"Easy," he says, not a condemnation but a warning. "Tell me, brave warrior, what you want of me."

Carver breathes in, tries to find himself, but he's giddy with wine and _want_ , and he doesn't know how to say it. "Whatever you've got for me. I can do ... I'll do whatever you want."

He looks up. Rodrigo is so solemn, up there on the table, something strange in his face for a moment before he tightens his grip on Carver's hair. "Careful, my warrior. A cruel man might take advantage."

"You can, though," Carver tells him, aching for it. "I'll let you."

"Careful," Rodrigo says again, stroking Carver's hair. "I am the worst of men, but I have no interest in cruelty." He twists Carver's hair up in knots, both hands now carding through it and dragging against his scalp. "I do not wish to hurt you, but I will, if that is what you want."

Carver doesn't know. He ducks down, presses his mouth to the bare expanse of Rodrigo's thigh, and just ... wants. "I _want_ to do it. Just ... can you tell me?"

Rodrigo is silent for a moment, and then he twists, hooking a booted ankle behind Carver's head, drawing him in. He stops him short, though, fingers warm and solid against Carver's mouth. "Who is it, I wonder, that has made you so pliant? Of whom are you thinking?"

"Don't ask me that." Carver looks up, and Rodrigo's eyes are so _knowing_ it's kind of unbearable. "I can't ... just tell me what to _do_."

Rodrigo sighs, fingers coming under his jaw to tip him up. "I will. But this is not something you should give up to a stranger so easily." He leans down, takes Carver's mouth, and then sits back, the ankle on Carver's neck pulling him up to Rodrigo's crotch. "Still, do as I say, and we will both be satisfied." His mouth twists; Carver wants it.

So he does.


	19. Chapter 19

Fenris waits, but no letter comes.

He tells himself it will take time, but whenever he visits the Hawke estate, where he believes an answer might arrive, he finds only disappointment. Leandra avoids him, shakes her head when he asks, dismisses him as though it is nothing.

"Letters are lost sometimes," she tells him, and his chest tightens because it is true, but he does not want to write again in case Carver has simply decided to reject him, showing it through silence.

A better letter might have made all the difference. Fenris berates himself for his inability to say the things he means to say, for his failures, his errors. If he had not treated with Carver so poorly then none of this would be necessary. He was such a _fool_. He _is_ a fool.

He becomes ... miserable. He goes through the motions necessary to make coin enough for his household. He follows Hawke wherever Hawke asks, cutting down anyone foolish enough to challenge the Champion or, honestly, simply too slow to get out of his way. He gives his earnings to Orana, encourages her to spend it however she sees fit, and minds Tully whenever she asks.

Tully is the only bright point in his life now, he thinks, watching the child arrange blocks in towers and smack them down, revelling in his power over them. It is so small a thing, but Tully can do it, and does it, and he looks to Fenris after with the impish glee of destruction shining in his face, and Fenris cannot deny him. He helps, constructing elaborate palaces out of small pieces of wood for Tully to ruin as he wishes. Whatever the child wants. Fenris loves him fiercely, loves his face, his tiny hands, the way he reaches out, fingers closing sharp and demanding on Fenris' skin. For this little person Fenris resolves to do _any thing_ , whatever is needed, only to see him smile.

Of course the child requires correction. Fenris finds chalks for him in the market, little chunks of colour, and he lets Tully scrawl on the floor, the walls, lets him leave trails of red and yellow on any surface he likes. But when Tully pulls down a book from a shelf and wants to draw on the pages of it, Fenris takes it away.

"No," he says, firm as he can. "Not in books."

Tully, who has never really been told 'no', begins to cry.

Fenris does not know what to do, and when Orana comes home to find her child in a tearful mess on the floor while Fenris entreats him _not_ to cry, she takes Tully away, puts him to bed, and comes up to Fenris with wine and cheese and bread, after.

"I'm sorry," Fenris tells her, not sure how to apologise enough. "I did not do it right."

"Serrah," she says, pouring the wine, and then pouring one for herself which -- this is Isabela's influence, and Fenris is glad of it. "You did as you should. He will become impossible, I think, if he is indulged too much." And she hesitates, fingers closing on her cup. "I am sorry my son is so willful, already."

"There is no need," he tells her, wanting her to understand, but also wanting-- "How do I tell him 'no' without such a display?"

She looks embarrassed, and says, "I don't know. My daughter ... I have never had a child live so long." And she is glad, in a way, but sad in another, and Fenris feels ... how would it be to lose a child? Given how much he does love Tully.

"Your daughter," he ventures, unsure if he causes worse hurt by asking, "what was her name?"

But Orana seems pleased by the question. "Olivia."

"A good name."

"For my mama."

Fenris does not remember his mother, but he remembers ... "My sister was called 'Varania'. Still is. She lives, still, in the Gallows." So Carver had told him.

Orana nods, settles her skirts about her, and reaches again for the wine bottle to refresh his cup. "Your real sister."

Ah, he understands her. How little he understood when first Sebastian forced her on him, but now? They are good for one another, in so many ways. She too is a bright point. He feels wretched for how he has treated her, all these years, how he has dismissed her, how he has chosen for her when she has always, always been able to choose for herself.

"You," he says, careful about it because it is a thing needing care, "are as much my sister as she. More so. She can rot in the Void, for all I care, but for you--" but Orana is shaking her head, frowning at her hands, and Fenris knows that this is equal to another's violent indignation.

"She is your sister, all the same." Orana looks up; now she meets his eyes, as never she used to. Now she whips him with the gentle disappointment of a _sister_. As she is, as he has sworn to her. "Whatever she has done to you, serrah. She is your sister. And my brother, who ... it is no matter. But. My brother is still my brother, no more nor less than you, serrah, who has been brother to me more than he."

"You have a brother?" He had never... he has never _asked_ , and the shame of it comes over him like a cloud. "Orana." He has nothing else.

She makes a small shape with her hands, so small but so meaningful. "He was younger. He went from us. He was sold."

And he understands, in ways no-one who has not been enslaved could understand. "I am sorry."

"There is no need." She looks up, eyes too bright for honesty. "He gained a good position. I am happy for him."

"You miss him."

She nods. "I will always." And then she sighs, shaking her head, and Fenris... "I wish so much for Tully. And you, serrah, every thing. If you will stand for him, when it is needed, I will do any thing to ensure it."

"In that regard you need do nothing," he says, and he realises then that he has dropped into Tevene again, or she did and he followed but did not notice. Either way, though-- "For Tully, in every way, I will do whatever is necessary."

Her smile is worth every word.

This, this thing they have made, is precious. Fenris clings to it, though it is a burden in its way. But he treasures it, and he has so little else to cling to.

* * *

Hawke lets slip that Sebastian is back from Starkhaven, and Fenris decides to confront him for news of Carver and, perhaps, some direction.

When Sebastian smiles he looks so much younger, shadows that had gathered beneath his eyes now smoothed away into fine creases that suit him much better. “Fenris!” There is real warmth in it, and for that Fenris is glad. “Maker bless you, my friend. How may I serve?”

Fenris opens his mouth, and then checks himself. _How may I serve?_ How often has Fenris come to the Chantry only to ask of Sebastian a boon? What ‘friend’ does that? The thought is a needle of guilt, one more way in which he has failed. He takes a breath, steels himself. _No more._

“Greetings.” Fenris thinks. He has no experience of the casual intimacy of friendship, and all the phrases he knows are too formal, appropriate for no-one but Hawke’s fine lady mother. Yet, Sebastian is the son of a prince, and he will at least be too polite to laugh. “I trust you are well?”

Sebastian blinks, and then smiles again. “I am in fine health. And yourself?”

“The same. It is good to see you. Starkhaven, then, has treated you well?" For Sebastian seems rejuvenated, refreshed by the holiday, and it suits him to look so merry. He is, Fenris thinks, very handsome. A thing Carver had always insisted and Fenris had ignored because it was unimportant but ... yes. Very handsome, very vital. More now than Fenris has ever seen him.

"It _has_." Sebastian looks thoughtful, but then he nods. "It is good to see a friend happy in love."

That ... what? Fenris does not, but-- "A friend?"

"Ser Tristram," Sebastian explains, and Fenris' heart unclenches, beats again, does not threaten to choke him. "I went to marry him to his ladylove, and a fine couple they make. I never thought to see him wed, that rogue." He sighs, bracing his hands on his hips. "But so go the best of us, with the Maker's blessing."

It is ... better than Fenris dreaded, for all of a moment. Now he frowns, seeking direction. “How go your devotions?”

There, he has shocked him; Sebastian’s eyebrows go up, but he answers smoothly enough. “All according to the Maker’s will, I pray, and good in His sight. I have, you should know, campaigned the Grand Cleric for changes to the conventions regarding elven baptism. She seems amenable. Now all we need is the money.”

He says so blithely, in this palace of marble and gold. Fenris sets the argument aside for another day, doing his best to nod and let none of it show in his face.

“And I’ve been teaching, actually,” Sebastian goes on, and now he seems almost shy, though Fenris cannot imagine why. “The same lessons we’ve had between us, but given to the children in the Chantry school.” Ah. It is not shyness but reluctance to offend. Fenris … resolves not to be offended.

“You must enjoy having apt pupils for a change,” he says wyly, and Sebastian laughs.

“Oh, no. They are most terrible. None of them enjoy it. And I can’t blame them -- who would choose to be locked up indoors, labouring with chalk and slate in this weather?”

It is, in honesty, a clear and beautiful late winter's day. And perhaps they ought to enjoy it. “Not I, for certain. Will you walk with me, in the fresh air? As fresh as Hightown can make it.”

“It would give me great pleasure,” Sebastian agrees, and so they go out.

They wander down to the market, observing the bustle of commerce there. Sebastian purchases a small packet of sweetened seaweed, and they share it, sitting on a bench out of the way, enjoying the crisp breeze and the promise of spring to come.

Eventually, Sebastian turns to him, his expression welcoming. “So, Fenris. There is something on your mind. I take it you wish some counsel? Or simply a sympathetic ear?”

Fenris nods. “It concerns … Carver Hawke.” Sebastian’s expression does not change, but Fenris senses from him an air of resignation, as if this is not a conversation he wishes to have. “Did he ... I wrote to him. Do you know if he received my letter?"

"I do not. He did not mention it, but," Sebastian makes a small gesture of commiseration. "I think I would have noted it, should such a letter have come to him."

Well. That means nothing. "I have reason to … I mean to say that I wish to approach him. And for that, I require your advice. I owe him an apology, and I have no experience in how to give one. Will you help me?”

Sebastian stares at him, and then he shakes his head. “Fenris. I do not know how to make such an apology. He was deeply wounded by … well, by your actions. Perhaps it would be best if you simply did not approach him.”

“I must,” Fenris insists, and his heart is racing. Surely Sebastian will not encourage him to give up before he has begun. “I have resolved to do so.”

Sebastian looks troubled, folding his hands in his sleeves. “What do you hope to achieve by this?”

Fenris has considered this, and knows his answer. “Forgiveness. Reconciliation.”

“If you mean to renew your relationship with him,” Sebastian starts but Fenris does not let him finish.

“I mean to begin again. I have broken trust with him, so I must earn it back. I will do whatever it takes. Beginning, I believe, with an apology. Will you help me?”

And now Sebastian’s mouth and eyes turn down into pity. “Fenris. It may be too late.”

“Then I will try and I will _fail_ ,” Fenris snaps, “but, venhedis, I must try! If I do not, then I will wallow forever in this not-knowing. It may not yet be ‘too late’. I must _know_.”

Sebastian hesitates, and then his expression smooths; his ‘Brother Sebastian’ face, Carver always called it. Carver hated it. Fenris wonders if whatever Sebastian says next will make Fenris hate him now.

“Sebastian, I _must_ ,” he insists, and he sounds desperate because he is, because if Sebastian will not help him then no-one will.

“And if he says you nay?”

Fenris shudders. “Then I will not pursue him. If he says it. But I will tell him that, should he change his mind, I will be waiting for him.”

“How long, Fenris, will you wait?” Sebastian shakes his head. “You have your own life to lead. It may be that it is not a life to be lived with _him_.”

“Then it is a hollow one, and I do not want it.”

Sebastian eyes him, and he looks so uncertain. But finally he sighs. “Maker help me, I believe you mean that. Ach, Fenris,” and he clasps Fenris’ shoulder, squeezing, and his grin is wry. “What a task you set yourself. Could you not have decided this _before_ he left the city?”

“I was too self-absorbed then. Now I know what I want.”

Sebastian shakes his head. “I would that you had never lost it. He … I cannot say much, for the same reason I could not say much of you to him, but,” and he raises a hand to his breast, opening his palm expressively, “I believe he has pined for you.”

Fenris does not know what to do with this. “I wish I had never hurt him.”

“That is a consequence of hurting someone. Especially when that someone is well loved. It can be difficult to believe that, however, when one has been hurt. To believe that one is still loved, I mean.”

It sounds too well understood to be only a platitude. “Your grandfather?”

Sebastian nods. “If we could have been reconciled before his death -- for that I would have given much. But I was afraid I had hurt him too badly, and by the time I found my courage it was too late. And, for my sins, I believed he could not love me still, not after the things that we said to one another.”

"But, had you the opportunity, again, to speak to him?"

"I would take it." Sebastian sighs, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. "Maker, I would."

"Then you understand."

"Aye, that I do." He shakes his head. "Though I still do not know how to word such an apology as you intend. Of all our friends, I think we both know I am not the one with the gift of words."

Fenris makes a face. "Hawke will not help me."

"I do not mean Hawke," Sebastian says, eyes sliding sideways to light on a dwarven merchant hawking his wares. "You know who I mean."

Fenris does.

* * *

Sebastian suggested it first, but it is Isabela who convinces him.

“If you want a really good apology, you _have_ to ask Varric. It’s what he does.” She gestures broadly with her cup. “I can help with seducing. Why don’t you just go to Starkhaven and seduce him?”

“Even if I tried, he deserves first to know that I am sorry.”

“So you’re humbling yourself in front of him.” Isabela makes a face. “Just say, ‘I’m sorry, I was a damn fool to ever let you go; come back to me, my darling, and we’ll make sweet glorious love for the rest of our lives’.” She grins. “Actually, that’s good. Say that.”

“Faugh,” and Fenris cannot help his scowl, “as though I would say such a thing.”

“Then _ask Varric_ ,” she insists. “I’ll do it. Come on!”

When they (drunkenly) go up to him Varric looks surprised, for once, and then delighted. “Well, well! Finally, someone comes to me with a challenge.” He rolls up a document and tucks it into a scroll-case, and then reaches for fresh paper and a new pen. “So, an apology for the little Hawke. Something direct, then. He’s not much for words, which is lucky for you, elf, because you’re not much for them either.” He pauses in trimming his quill. “I always wondered, did the two of you just scowl at one another all night in your mansion? I can’t imagine the conversation.”

“Oooh, I know this one,” Isabela chimes in, grinning and leaning heavily on Fenris’ arm. “Fenris must have done all the talking because Carver’s mouth was too full!” She winks, then chortles, well pleased with herself.

“Hush, Rivaini,” Varric chides, rolling up his sleeves. “There’s a master at work, who needs to think.” He ponders a moment, and then dips his quill. “My beloved,” he says aloud, but Isabela laughs before he can put pen to paper.

“It has to sound like _Fenris_ ,” she argues, reaching for the pen, but Varric refuses to give it up. “How about ‘My heart’?”

Varric arches an eyebrow at her. “That’s even worse. Well, elf? Do you have a pet name for him? Be honest,” he adds dryly, turning his arched eyebrow on Fenris now. “He’ll know better than we do.”

“I called him ‘Carver’,” Fenris says, embarrassed now because this is too personal. “When I called him anything.”

“What, no endearments?” Varric looks shocked, but Fenris thinks it is too dramatic to be real. “Where’s the romance?”

“There was no ‘romance’,” Fenris argues. “He is not a woman, to be wooed with soft words and softer sentiment.”

Isabela pokes him hard. “Hey!”

But Varric is writing, muttering as he goes. “Carver. I know you are not a woman, to be wooed with soft words and softer sentiment…” He looks up, grins. “Go on.”

It’s awful. And yet … there is a lot of crossing out and arguing, and they empty two bottles of wine before they are done, but eventually Varric nods and pushes the paper across the table.

“Read that aloud. Let’s hear how it sounds.”

Embarrassed again, but now because he fears their mockery at his poor reading, Fenris takes the paper, looks it over, and begins.

“Carver. I know you are not one to be wooed with soft words and softer sentiment, but I know too what is in my heart. Never have I cared for any as I do you, and never before have I been so foolish as to toss such a thing as we had so carelessly to the winds. For that, and for every wrong I have done you, I am sorry. I will do any thing you ask, if you will only look upon me with kindness, remembering what was between us, and forgive me my errors. And if by Andraste’s Grace you would stoop to take me back, I would be to you as I should always have been. Because,” and here he pauses, the words coming hard and awkward from his mouth, “I love you. Please, forgive me.” He swallows, and though it is a script it feels so _real_ , and he means every word. “If you will have me, I am yours.”

They are silent, and he is afraid to look up at them, to see their merriment when this is more important to him than he can express. But when he does they are neither of them smiling, neither of them look amused. Instead … are they stunned by how poorly he reads aloud?

“Andraste's sweet knickers,” Isabela breathes, and she fans herself with one hand, eyes wide and shiny. “Oh, _Fenris_.” She hugs him. He doesn’t understand, and then Varric is shaking his head, dragging the paper back across the table and fetching another clean sheet.

“Did I read it incorrectly?” Fenris asks, confused and struggling free of Isabela’s over-tight grip.

“Not even a little, broody.” Varric writes very quickly, his hand so neat and clear that Fenris feels awkward about the scratchy mess of his own writing. “That was perfect. If he doesn’t take you back after that then he’s dead inside.”

Varric blows on the parchment when he’s done, passes it to Fenris, and examines the original critically.

“Huh. I think I can work this into part four,” he says, and Fenris scowls at him when he realises what that means.

“You will not use this in one of your fictions!”

“Won’t I?” Varric grins, folding the paper and tucking it into a pocket. “That’s the price of a professional. Write your own speeches if you don’t want them recycled. Anyway, I’ve been looking for a good ending for that story. Ser Sullen won’t know what hit him.”

“Ooooh, is he still angsting over his handsome-but-cruel elven lover?” Isabela lets Fenris go, reaching for a new bottle and uncorking it with one of her many knives. “What happened to the subplot with the gorgeous-but-virginal Chantry brother?”

“I was bored with that,” Varric says, spreading his hands. “No inspiration, there.”

“I liked it!” Isabela pouts and tops up their cups. “Such wank-bank material.”

“That was all it was, though. No depth. Romance is nothing without some _substance_.”

Fenris looks from one of them to the other, and he isn’t sure if he should be angry about it all. “Have you … this elven lover. Did you write about me?”

“Handsome-but-cruel,” Isabela crows, like a toast, and she clunks her cup against Varric’s. “Lupin’s gorgeous, I can’t get enough. So _broody_. So fuckable.”

"And, sadly, fictional," Varric says, smirking at them both. "Just like the gorgeous-but-virginal Chantry brother."

"Hah," and Isabela tips up her cup, swallowing wine like, well, just like herself. "We'll _see_ how fictional. Though, Sebastian's about as virginal as I am."

"Probably about the same," Varric agrees, settling back in his chair. "Though in the opposite direction."

"What does _that_ mean?"

"That he is more innocent than he thinks, but less than he pretends." Varric twirls the wine in his cup, smirking over it. "Come on, you know he's hiding something. Give me your best guess."

"Oooh." Isabela leans her elbows on the table, looking wild and mischievous. "Well, he doesn't have any sisters, so I'd say ... a goat!"

They laugh. Fenris tucks the speech into his chestplate, near his heart, and lets them sweep him away with their banter. He'll read it again when he gets home, when he's sober, will learn it by heart because this? Is the best way. And if he speaks it aloud, to Carver, then he'll know, at least. Whatever happens after that, however awful, he'll know that he tried.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a few queries, so _yes_ , it was Zevran, both times. I hadn't intended to reveal the first instance so close to the second, but it _was_ always meant to be Zevran.

Carver doesn't exactly _miss_ the Gallows, but the first month in the Templar compound currently housed in the Starkhaven Chantry is a nightmare. He has to requisition Starkhaven uniforms and plate, and the temporary stuff they give him fits poorly and pinches in the shoulders. The only private rooms are for Lieutenants and higher, everyone else crowded into the barracks. He shares a space with three other Knights Corporal up one end with screens between lending them the illusion of privacy. At least they don't have to share beds; the recruits are mostly two-a-bunk and grouchy about it, for which Carver doesn't blame them at all.

There are no mages in Starkhaven. This he notices at once, and of _course_ there aren't any mages, the Starkhaven Circle burned to the _ground_ , but still there’s not a wisp of magic around and it’s _weird_. Carver’s used to it being just there, this low pulse in the background washing up and down like a wave, but now? Nothing.

It takes him a day or two to notice the other thing.

“Where are the women?” he asks Tristram, glancing about the mess.

The Knight Lieutenant flashes him a grin that’s far saucier than it has any right to be. “If it’s women you want, now your elf's _buggered_ off back to Antiva, we’ll find plenty of them in the Orlesian quarter. Don’t worry, I’ll take you out and get your throat and your pecker wet, little brother.”

The ‘little brother’ makes Carver’s shoulders twitch, and Rodrigo ... well. That hadn't been going anywhere, anyway. Just an itch to scratch. Rodrigo had bid him a thorough farewell before he went, and Tristram had mocked Carver so soundly after for the bruises around his wrists that Carver had wanted very badly to punch him in the face. 

He hadn't, of course. Can't strike a superior officer, even when they bloody well deserve it.

He shakes his head. “No, I mean the lady Templars. There aren’t any. Why aren’t there any?”

“Like your ladies in armour, eh?” He waggles his eyebrows. "Can't say I blame you, there."

“No, I ... it’s just weird, that’s all.”

“I’ll admit that Kirkwall’s Templasses pretty the place up where it could do with a bit of prettying,” Tristram says, leaning one elbow on the table and grinning. “And never let it be said that any one of them couldn’t hold her own in a scrum. But Starkhaven isn’t Kirkwall, and in _Starkhaven_ , they don’t knight women.”

He says it so matter-of-factly for a man whose wife is a hard-enough mercenary that Carver's a little scared of her. “What? But ... why not?”

“Tradition. A lot of things in Starkhaven come down to the fact that they’ve always been done that way. Like ‘Brother’ Sebastian.”

Carver blinks. “What about him?”

“Oh, he likes to think it was all our carousing that got him shipped off to the Chantry, but he’s the youngest of three, and most of the blue-bloods of Starkhaven do it the same way. First born for the title, second for the sword, third for the Chantry. It’s supposed to stop them from getting into trouble,” Tristram adds, knifing open a breadroll and slathering it with meat-jelly. “And it keeps the bloodlines tidy. Though, with Valery, I don’t think anyone ever thought he’d take to it. Maker’s breath, it’s a miracle.”

Carver has come to tolerate Tristram, as his only friend in Starkhaven now Sebastian's gone, and also for himself. He's brash and embarrassing, but he means well, and Carver has benefitted from his generosity and concern, even when he thinks it really ought to have singled him out amongst the others. Without Tristram, though, it would have been intolerable rather than just, well, tolerable.

The Knight Commander here is a man with short ginger hair and a rough beard, and narrow blue eyes that examine Carver like a man buying fleece, and seem to always find him wanting. His name is Callion, and Carver doesn't like him. Still, this is his Commander, so he tries. For what it's worth.

Carver is given custody of the recruits and the junior knights, which ought to be an honour, honestly, but turns out to be something of a punishment. The first day, Carver gets into a fight with one of them, another ginger bloke with blue eyes, who takes one look at Carver and spits on the ground.

"Another Kirkwall pansy," he mutters, loud enough to be heard, and Carver just _won't_.

"You got something to say to me, ser knight?"

The knight smirks, loosely swinging his practice sword in one hand, which puts Carver's hackles up because you should _respect_ your weapon, even if it's just leather-wrapped wood, and your seniors, even if they're only a handful of years senior. "No, ser. I've got nothing to say to _you_."

Oh, for fuck's sake. "If you've got a problem with _Kirkwall pansies_ ," he snaps, "then I reckon you've got a whole _lot_ to say to me." Carver puts out a hand, expecting a practice sword smacked into his palm, and it takes a few heartbeats to realise that it isn't going to happen. He glares at the nearest recruit, a kid with a ratty little moustache and big dark eyes. " _Come_ on. Ser talks-a-lot wants a spar and I'm gunna give him one." The kid just stares at him and it takes a whole bunch of effort to suppress the urge to chew him out. "Recruit! Get me a fucking sword!"

There's a scramble then and, ah crap, they're sodding useless, but eventually Carver gets his sword and his shield, and then he salutes, the way you _do_.

The knight sniggers, making a ridiculously overblown salute right back, and settles into a ready stance, cocking an eyebrow in a way that makes Carver feel ... angry.

But, you can't be angry in battle, or even in a spar, and maybe even _less_ so in a spar because you aren't supposed to hurt your opponent, just show them what's what. So he gestures with his shield and says, "Whenever you're ready, kid."

The 'kid' might be too much; the bloke scowls at him, sets his shoulders, and then--

Well. He comes in fast, but he's just testing, so Carver smacks him away, steps out, and the kid follows, pressing hard and using his shield like it's part of him. A second weapon, and some of his moves put Carver in mind of Paxley, which is heartrending, but he's _better_ which is _more_ heartrending, and after that Carver stops thinking because he's actually going to have to work for this.

Still, the knight leaves himself open, too confident, too bold, and Carver waits for the moment where the kid lets himself be forced off-balance to come in and flatten him with a shield.

The knight takes it, rolls with it, comes up to cut under Carver's shield and clang awkwardly against Carver's mail skirt; awkward or not it has weight behind it, and Carver is, frankly, impressed.

"That was good," he says, but the kid doesn't pause, follows it up with a nasty strike up Carver's side that he barely deflects. Oh, so they're doing this?

Well. Carver can deal with that.

He feints, fakes a stagger, and the look on his opponent's face is a dead giveaway. When he comes in again Carver locks his crosspiece, twists the weapon away to thud uselessly on the flagstones.

The Starkhaven knight's eyes are like fire. His mouth wrenches into a bitter, furious shape, and he just stands there, fists clenched into bricks, and Carver thinks it still might not have been enough.

"D'you wanna go again?"

He bares his teeth, and Maker's sodding balls, how did he get like this? How could anyone have knighted a hot-head with less sense than the Maker gave _mice_?

"Get your sword, if you do," Carver tells him, _Or back the fuck down before I put you on the ground._

The knight just grinds his teeth, flings his shield to the ground and stalks off, which is so frankly insubordinate that Carver can barely believe it. He should call after him, should give him a penance for it, but ... fuck, it's stupid. And everyone's staring at him, and he hates that. So he tosses his sword to rat-stache -- the boy catches it, but only just -- and gestures to the rest. "Well? Back to it, then."

Maker. If only Ruvena were here, or Ser Agatha; she'd certainly never let the juniors get so out of hand. Even Rochard would have them running laps for gawking when they're meant to be working.

Later, when he's in the mess etching up an itinerary for the morrow and wishing so hard for Barker's previously unappreciated skill at organisation, Tristram drops onto the bench by his side. "Heard you're already causing trouble, Butcher."

Carver blinks at him. "What? No. What do you mean?"

Tristram flicks him in the ear, hard enough even without gauntlets. "There's a 'ser' missing there, boy-oh."

"Ser," Carver says, scowling into Tristram's grin. "Sorry, ser. I still don't know what you mean."

"Young Ser Lachlan, that you schooled in the practice yard. Callion's boy. Oh- _ho_ , did you not know that?" He leans his chin in one palm, elbow resting on the sticky table. "Sometimes I worry you're too thick to learn, Hawke."

Carver hates being called thick, even when sometimes he's pretty sure he is. "So I sparred with the Knight Commander's favourite, so what? Ser."

Tristram snorts. "Favourite? Burden, more like it."

"What?"

"Lachlan's his _son_ , Butcher." Tristram seems to enjoy his mortification, chuckling like a fishwife. "Humiliated the little twat good and proper, they're saying." He glances over his shoulder. "He's glaring at you still. Nice work."

Carver looks; there's the ginger kid, sitting alone against a wall, glowering fit to burst. Shit. "He _is_ a twat," he says, feeling foolish. He might be rubbish at politics but, well, can't be a good thing, embarrassing his new Commander's son. Maker, it hasn't even been a _week_ and he's already fucking things up.

"Aye, he is. And a cocky one, too. So it's for the best, I say, but Callion might not think so. Though," he adds, tilting his head and considering Carver with his sharp dark eyes, "given how much he ignores the lad, maybe he won't give a shit about it. I suppose we'll have to wait and see."

It's a bad beginning. Carver writes in his diary that night: _Made an enemy today._ He leaves it at that, wondering how badly the whole thing will pan out.

He watches Lachlan after that, counts every scowl and sneer, tallying them up to take out of his hide later, if necessary, but all the kid does _is_ scowl and sneer. He doesn't say another word out of line, doesn't challenge Carver again, just looks his looks and keeps his mouth shut. 

Carver notices, though, that Lachlan sits alone at meals, stands alone in the muddle of juniors whenever Carver calls them together for group instruction. He doesn't seem to have any friends, and when Carver _really_ looks he sees the signs, and for fuck's sake, every place is the same.

When Lachlan is late to the yard one morning, shows up red-faced and furious, Carver takes in the dampness of his robes, the whiff of rotten eggs, the embarrassment blooming hot and heavy in his eyes, and decides to leave it at a short, "Don't be late again, Ser Lachlan."

Lachlan scowls, and throws himself into training so hard he wrenches a shoulder and ... bloody _void_. This is happening, and Carver can't let it keep happening, no matter how much he dislikes the little shit.

It really doesn't help that the kid is good, better than the others by a long shot, and younger than the rest of them too. Hot-headed ginger kid who's the Commander's son and _talented_ and has _no friends_.

He swears a bit inside his head, and checks in with Starkhaven's Knight Captain.

Bridie's a bit of a ponce, a short bloke with a too-long tail of hair and one of those pointy oiled beards Carver's not used to seeing on anyone who's not Orlesian, and he huffs when Carver asks for Lachlan's file. "Kirkwall may have acclimatised you to a level of bureaucracy unnecessary in Starkhaven," he says primly, giving Carver a cat-dragged-you-in kind of look. "We do not keep files on our knights, here."

It seems so _stupid_. "But ... Ser, how am I supposed to know anything about the junior knights if they don't have _files_?" Cullen always -- but Cullen's not here.

Knight Captain Bridie sniffs, mouth turned down in disdain. "You ask _me_ , Ser Carver. If you have any questions."

Carver manages, somehow, not to roll his eyes. "As you say, ser. Uh ... Ser Lachlan, then."

"What about him?"

Carver spreads his hands helplessly. "Everything?"

Bridie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, and it reminds Carver so hard of _his_ Knight Captain that ... but he tries not to dwell on it. "Lachlan is competent. He has a tendency for misbehaviour, however, brawling and the like. But competent enough."

"How long's he been knighted? Knight Captain," he adds belatedly, and _fuck_ it feels so wrong.

"Less than a year. Is it important?"

Carver doesn't know, so he shrugs. "Maybe not, ser. How long was he a recruit?" Because, he looks so fucking young beside the others.

"Four years. Since he was thirteen."

It's too young, Carver knows that, knows that Cullen would never have taken on a boy so green, no matter who his father was, and it sits badly in his gut. How long have the others been hazing him? And, Andraste's mercy, how _badly_? "Has he made complaint, ser, against any of his fellows?"

"No." Bridie frowns at him. "What are you getting at, Ser Carver?"

Carver takes a breath, never comfortable with this. "I think they're bullying him, ser."

Knight Captain Bridie looks shocked, but it isn't until he speaks that Carver realises _why_. "I assure you he would not complain about such a thing. Under any circumstances."

 _What?_ "Ser?"

Bridie stands up, tucking his hands fussily behind his back and casting Carver a baleful frown. "Perhaps you are used to _soft_ recruits, being as you are so unfortunately Kirkwall-trained. However, in Starkhaven men do not _whine_ over matters so very trivial. Permit me, Ser Carver, to warn you against accusing the Knight Commander's _son_ of such weakness."

Carver ... oh for fuck's sake. "Ser," he starts, but then ... this isn't Cullen, this isn't the Gallows. "As you say, ser." And then, because Bridie seems to expect more, he salutes, and says, "Sorry, ser. I'll remember that."

"See that you do." He arches an eyebrow, and shit, Carver just _can't_ with this. "If you have no further questions, Ser Carver, you are dismissed."

"Ser." 

Carver goes, though he thinks ... Andraste's _Grace_ , what the fuck?

* * *

Carver goes down to the training yard early one morning, and finds Lachlan there, working meticulously through his sword forms with the sun not yet up over the horizon. He watches for a bit -- the kid has promise, shit, he really does -- before clearing his throat. "Ser Lachlan."

Lachlan twists, and the look on his face ... he's expecting an attack, it's obvious, sword up like that and, even though it's just a bit of wood, there's a threat in it that screams 'fuck off' loud enough that even Carver can hear it. 

"Bit early for practice," Carver says, walking into the courtyard to test the weapons on the rack. The one-handers are too heavy for practice with a shield and the two-hander he finds at the bottom of the rack is too fucking light, chipped away and old, as though it got a lot of use once but no longer. "You like working out in the small hours?"

Lachlan is silent for a long time; Carver just tests out the two-hander and, shit, he's going to have to get a new one made up, because this thing is rubbish. Then -- "It's quiet," Lachlan says.

Carver turns to him, hefting the sword to get a feel for it. "Yeah. Better, when no-one's watching."

The boy nods, holding his sword-and-board warily, watching Carver with those narrow blue eyes. "Yeah."

Carver sighs. "You're gunna have to call me 'ser' some time, Ser Lachlan." But he doesn't press it, just gestures with his weapon. "Wanna go again? Don't think we really finished it right, last time."

Lachlan frowns, and then his mouth twists up. "No-one to see, now."

"I know, right?" Carver grins at him, and really, the boy _is_ good; Carver really does want to try him, see how good he could _be_. "No-one to impress. Just you and me. So come on, show me what you've got."

Lachlan hesitates, and then-- "As you say, _ser_."

He goes at it hard, and skillfully. Carver feels better with a two-hander, shit as it is, but still, Lachlan moves like a fucking _ghost_ , dancing across the courtyard as though he _means_ it, and Carver can't help but think, _If I had ten of you in Kirkwall, Maker, even just two, or just one..._ He's quick and fast and _tricky_ , and Carver barely keeps him off, only just deflects his strikes, has to _use his armour_ to do so, and how long has it been since he'd had to do _that_? And Lachlan ducks Carver's strikes too, snake-like, too fucking fast, and he uses his _feet_ , kicks at Carver's ankles before stepping inside the reach of Carver's two-hander to close.

It's exhausting, and exhilarating, and eventually Carver calls a stop to it because the sun's well up now and people will start trailing into the yard any moment. "Enough of that, Ser Lachlan. That was good." He ladles himself a gulp of water from the pump-barrel, and then he offers the ladle up, like a truce. "You out here early every day?"

Lachlan eyes him warily, and does not take the ladle. "Most days."

"Good. I'll see you here tomorrow, then. Could do with a regular warm-up."

It isn't clear what Lachlan thinks of that. He gives Carver guarded looks throughout the morning, leaving off only when the lunch bell rings.

The next morning, though, Carver finds him waiting in the yard before dawn, wary and scowling, and impatiently swinging his sword. "Sleep in, _ser_?" he sneers.

Carver thinks that's progress, of a sort. "Bathing, Ser Lachlan. You might like to try it some time."

They spar. They do it every day for a week, and by the end of it Lachlan's stopped sneering at Carver, though he still throws one the way of anyone else who comes near him.

Definitely progress. Good.

* * *

Carver's still concerned, still watching Lachlan, and maybe _because_ he's watching Lachlan, always alert for that gingery-blond head and that fierce scowl, he notices other things. Like the way people eye Carver when they think he's not looking, the furtive glances that cut up at him in the mess and, one dreary afternoon, the shifty looks cast his way by a trio of knights standing in the shade on the edge of the courtyard where he's drilling the juniors.

He might not have taken note of it, anyway, except for how familiar they all seem, but one of them turns and he _sees_ it. Oh. Well, of course. He'd forgotten.

Geary looks up, right into Carver's face, and he darkens, turns away, his shoulders hunched, and it is clear that he knows he'd been made.

At first, Carver doesn't know what to do about it. They're colluding, obviously, something sinister in mind, but it's not as though he can mention it to Knight Captain Bridie. Not because he's afraid of being branded a sissy, but because Bridie's fucking _useless_ , and has made it perfectly clear that he thinks Carver's useless too.

He _could_ drop a word to Tristram, but ... no, the thought of what Tristram might do about it (and worse, that he might not do anything at all) sits poorly. This is something Carver's going to have to take care of on his own. Sly, like.

Carver's no good at sly.

If he had an office he'd call Geary up to it for a pointed chat, and if he had friends here he would confront Geary in the yard or the mess or a corridor, but he has neither, and nothing to guide him. 

So he lets it go, but keeps a sharp watch out for trouble, and wonders what to--

The demon has shrugged into Paxley's skin, which is annoying generally but somewhat appropriate this time. "Shall we plot together?" he suggests, twisting that moustache into a wry smirk. Carver sinks into the long grass, barefoot against the cool dampness of the soil beneath, arms twisted up under his head for a pillow.

"I shouldn't listen to you."

The demon nods, not in agreement but understanding. "You don't have anyone else, though."

It's true. Carver groans, rolling onto his belly. The sky overhead is pink and wrong, and the grass is too soft, completely free of ants and bugs and sharp twigs. But it's comfortable, so he ignores the wrongness of it. "They're plotting something. They ... Barker thought they tried to kill me." All three of them, because Carver recognises the other two from Kirkwall now, though he can't remember their names.

"You aren't convinced of that," the demon says, lounging in shirtsleeves and rolled-up trousers on the side of the hill. "Why not?"

"Why would anyone want to? I don't mean, y'know, smugglers and blood mages and that. People I'm trying to kill right back. But other knights. Other _templars_. We're supposed to be brothers, in the grace of Andraste. How could they hate me that much?"

"You hated Ser Alrik," the demon points out, maddeningly logical. "And Ser Mettin, and Ser Pereval. Would you not have done the same to them?"

Pereval. It's a burr beneath his clothes, this unfinished business he has with fucking Pereval. Still-- "Not enough to poison them. I'd take it up in a duel. Trial by arms. You know, clean and neat."

"As your brother did, with the Arishok?"

Well. That's a bit complicated, but still. "Kinda like that."

"And if you failed?"

"I'd be dead." He shrugs, and the demon reaches out to rub him down but he flinches away. "Anyway, I wouldn't. I'd _win_."

"But here you can't." Paxley's face (the demon's face) turns down into a frown, but it's meaningless. All the demon's expressions are meaningless, things designed to trick him and drag him under. And yet, when he (he?) grins it looks real enough. "Maybe you need to keep your enemies close."

"How do you mean?"

"Ask for them. Take them under your wing, give them protection. You don't have to trust them, but you can watch them better, then." His eyes glow, inhuman and awfully familiar. "The better to destroy them, when they turn on you."

Carver doesn't know what to make of it, but when he wakes he finds he has had an idea.


	21. Chapter 21

One of the things Carver appreciates about Starkhaven, beyond how well-liked Templars are in this otherwise hopelessly awful city, is the breakfasts. No bacon, sadly, (and how Cullen would bemoan it, he thinks, remembering the warmth of breakfasts in Ferelden, of fried pork and fried bread, and doing his best not to remember it too fondly) but there are eggs, and hot biscuits with onions and _gravy_. Fish pies too -- Starkhaven knows how to treat fish with _respect_ , flaky pastries packed with sweet river-fish and vegetables, no fucking seaweed, and really he can't complain.

He gathers his breakfast and slides onto a bench opposite Knight Lieutenant Tristram in the mess-hall, ready to make his case despite the early hour.

"Ser?"

"Morning, Butcher." Tristram grins at him through the steam of their plates, definitely enjoying the bounty of a Starkhaven breakfast, lively with it, as he always is. "Oh-ho, you look intent. What's on your mind?"

Carver takes a breath, marshalls his arguments, and begins. "I want Geary and Uldred and Harrrison in my squad." He's about to go on, explain why it's a good idea, why he ought to have them, but Tristram just nods.

"Done. Next?"

It's an anti-climax, honestly, because Carver had prepared all these _reasons_ , but, well. He's getting what he wants. Except-- "Lachlan too," he says, though he has less arguments prepared for this, and feels he might be on shaky ground here.

Tristram nods, gathers up some gravy on a bit of biscuit, and says, "All right." He grins. "Was that all? Come on, boy-oh, surely you want more than _that_."

Carver ... doesn't. "No, ser. That's it. So ... when I go to Knight Captain Bridie for it, you'll back me up?"

Tristram snorts. "No need. I'll just tell 'im you want 'em and they'll be yours." He busies himself with his plate and Carver thinks that was easy, too easy, but he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

"Thank-you, ser."

Tristram chuckles, and launches into a bawdy story about a junior knight caught out after curfew with one of the servants (they have actual servants in Starkhaven, doing the duties normally taken up by the tranquil) and how horrendously he'd made excuses in the face of his punishment, and how the servant had stood by silently, rolling her eyes, until the knight had been assigned work details and other punishments. It's ... a bit funny, and the part where the servant threw up her hands and frankly _growled_ at the duty lieutenant before she was permitted to go has Carver grinning despite himself. Good on her, to have more spine than the sad sap she'd been tumbling.

They're almost done with breakfast, the knight lieutenant sopping up the last of his plate and still chuckling to himself, when they're interrupted by a nervous recruit.

"Knight Lieutenant?"

Tristram nods. "Aye?"

The recruit tries to shape himself into an attentive, alert stance that makes Carver want to laugh because it looks so _wrong_ , so forced. Recruits, the same everywhere. So _eager_. "There's a woman to see you, at the gate."

"Hah!" Tristram leans back on his bench, grinning like his rogue self. "I'm a married man, now. no time for the _ladies_."

The recruit doesn't seem to know how to take that, but he salutes, stiff and awkward and terrible. Carver definitely doesn't smirk at him. "She says she has urgent business with you. And there's a child with her, a little girl." Which must be important because the recruit goes very pink, and Tristram stiffens as though ... oh, really?

"Did she give a name?" Tristram asks, quietly for once, and the recruit nods.

"Andrea," he says, and then, "Ser," he adds, like punctuation.

Carver glances at Tristram and, oh, he's too dark to go pale but in the face of this he looks as shocked as Carver has ever seen him.

"Ser?" Carver taps his fork on the edge of his plate. "All right, ser?"

"Ah," and Tristram looks fucking _harrowed_ for a moment. "With me, Hawke?"

Carver follows, riddled with curiosity and a little apprehension because whatever this is it has his Knight Lieutenant in a tizzy and he's never seen that before.

The woman at the gate is pretty, in a pale, skinny way, a little pinch-faced and rawboned, but she's got a lot of thick frizzy hair billowing around her head in a way Carver rather likes. She has a look to her that he remembers from Lowtown, canny and no-nonsense, and the glare she shoots Tristram when she catches sight of him is sharp enough to wound.

"Andrea," Tristram says warily, and then he crouches down to look the little girl clutching at the woman's skirts in the eye. "Hey, wee thing. All right, girl?"

The child is maybe three or four years old, with a sweet dark face and huge solemn eyes that remind Carver painfully of Libby -- Lily, that is. She regards Tristram seriously for a moment before turning her face against her mother's leg.

"Ach, don't be like that," Tristram says softly, reaching out to brush her shoulder with the tips of his gauntlet.

"And why wouldn't she be, Tristram MacFarris? You don't visit, you don't ask after her," and the woman clearly would go on but Tristram holds up a hand to ward her off, rising to his feet and scowling.

"Leave off, Andy. What do you want with me?" He sounds so defensive. Carver doesn't quite know what to make of it.

"Well." She folds her arms, regarding him very sharply. "I hear you've married."

Tristram frowns, but then he reaches up to scratch the back of his head in a way that is distinctly ... sheepish? What the fuck? "Aye. You're not angry I didn't send an invitation, are ye?"

Andrea snorts, not even slightly impressed. "Not a bit. I'm happy for you. I hope she's everything y'ever dreamed of." Wisely, Tristram doesn't say anything to this. Carver waits, biting his lip, to find out exactly what's going on here. "Well, congratulations, anyhow. And I'll have your congratulations, if you've any. I'm marrying myself."

Tristram looks floored for a moment, before he rallies. "Well, congratulations to you. Who's the lucky fellow?"

"Never you mind that," she snaps. "I don't expect you'll care for him, nor him for you. And neither does he care for feeding and clothing another man's get. So, if you please, I've minded her four years now, and nine months in the womb, and you can have the care of her from here on. I'm sure your lady wife will be _very_ understanding."

"Now, come _on_ , Andy," Tristram says, his voice rising, but Andrea cuts him off with a sharp gesture.

"Don't you 'come on' me, boy-oh." Then her face takes a shape vicious with cruel humour. "If you'd had the presence of mind to do that in the first place we wouldn't have this wee problem, would we?"

 _Andraste's_ tits _. She actually said that._ Carver admires her a little, even as he watches Tristram's eyes widen with shock.

Tristram takes a breath and shakes his head, the thin cords of his hair flying about like dark moths. "Do you not care for her, woman?"

Her expression is brittle, now, and Carver glances down at his feet because ... this is private. He shouldn't be party to it. "No more than you, it seems. If y'don't want her she'll go to the Chantry orphanage. On your conscience be it."

Tristram's face screws up into something like anger, and Carver thinks again that this is _not_ for him to see. "Fine. _Fine_. As you will it. May the Maker forgive you."

"And may He forgive _you_ ," she snaps back, but then she's pushing a bundle into Tristram's arms, and running a hand over the girl's head, bending to say, "Go with your father, child. You're his, now."

The girl clings to her, but when her mother unlatches her fingers and pushes her away she goes limp, like a puppet with her strings cut, and Carver's heart goes out to her. Poor little thing. He doesn't know what his face is doing, but when Tristram meets his eye the Knight Lieutenant flinches as if burned.

"Ach, fuck me to the void," he growls, reaching for his daughter and swinging her into his arms. She goes easily, does not protest, but she's so stiff, obviously uncomfortable. "We're done then, Andrea. Don't ask me for anything again."

"We've been well done for years," she says sharply, and then she spares a barely affectionate pat for the girl before turning on her heel to vanish into the crowd on the street.

Carver just stands there, watching Tristram watch her go, and ... this is definitely not what he'd been expecting, but now he thinks it was all fairly obvious. Still. _Tristram has a child. Maker_ fuck _, he does._

Tristram shuffles the bundle of (probably) belongings out from under his arm, gesturing with his chin for Carver to take it. "All right. All _right_." He licks his lips, and then his expression firms up, goes hard, and he nods. "I'm relieving you of duties this morning, Hawke. Come along."

Carver makes a sound that he hopes doesn't sound like he's laughing. "Ah, ser?" He gestures vaguely with his free hand. "You ... gunna explain this?"

"Oh, and what of it don't you understand?" Tristram looks angry for a moment, but then it turns into a sort of stoicism. "My advice to you. Never screw around with a woman unless there's money changing hands. Otherwise," and he glances at his silent armful of child. He sighs, presses a kiss to her tightly braided hair. "Hey, wee thing. Don't you worry. I'll see you taken care of."

Carver isn't sure what he thinks, following Tristram through the streets of Starkhaven. So he had a child by accident. So he clearly hasn't done much for her. And now he has to. And ... what? If Xavia doesn't like it, what will happen to her?

 _Chantry orphanage._ He doesn't know if that's _bad_ , but he thinks it probably is. No-one ever says 'orphan' like it's a good thing.

"You gunna send her to the orphanage, ser?" he asks, eventually, though he sort of hates that he has to ask.

The look Tristram gives him is brutal. "Fuck _that_." He doesn't seem at all concerned about cursing in front of her, doesn't even spare her an apologetic glance. "I grew up in the blighted orphanage. Wouldn't wish that on anyone." He takes a deep breath and adds, "If Xavia wants none of it I'll pay a woman to take her in."

Carver nods, greatly reassured. "What's her name?"

Tristram stops, holding his daughter on his hip, and stares at him for a moment. Eventually, though, he says, "Alexan. Hey," and he ducks his head to look her in the face. "Hey, my girl. Alexan MacTristram, this is Carver Hawke. _Ser_ Carver. Say 'how do you do?' to the good Knight Corporal, there's a lass."

She looks at Carver and mumbles something that might be a 'how do you do', but it's hard to tell. Carver salutes her, because he doesn't know what else to do. "Hullo, Alexan. Nice to meet you."

Her eyes are so _solemn_. Fuck, this is awful.

When they get to Xavia's house, Tristram turns to Carver in the front yard. "She's not going to like this, I can tell you that. So ... mind the wee bit? While I talk the missus round."

Carver nods, because he has no fucking choice, and because he feels badly for her, poor unwanted mite with her sad and serious looks and her sweet little face. He lets Tristram tip her into his arms and she goes easily, again, as if she really doesn't care, and then Carver follows him in.

"Sweetheart?" Tristram calls. He sounds so tentative. It's all wrong and Carver thinks his wife is going to know at once that something's wrong.

They find Xavia in the parlour, sitting with several other women, all of them drinking tea and lounging about. She arches an eyebrow at her husband, turns it on Carver, and her expression narrows when she sees Carver's burden.

"Hullo, husband." She doesn't get up, just tilts her head on one side. "Fancy seeing you just now."

Tristram nods a greeting to the other ladies, all of whom look utterly entranced by this unexpected interruption, and clears his throat, hands worrying at his waist. "Might I have a word with you, my love?"

She stands up, and her expression gives away nothing but Carver suspects she is ready to be very angry from the stiff way she strides across the room. "In the courtyard, _my love_."

She leads him out, and Carver is left alone ... with a little girl he doesn't know and four women he doesn't know either.

One of them grins, lifting the teapot. "Care for a cup, ser knight?"

"Ooh, what a darling," coos another, and Carver sets Alexan down on the floor because what else is he to do? She stands in the middle, looking uncomfortable, but allows the ladies to woo her with cakes, eventually settling in as they feed her up.

One of them unbraids her hair and then braids it up again, a little different, prettier, Carver thinks. Another takes a ribbon from her purse and cuts it into short bits with her belt knife, tying each part at the end of a braid and grinning as she does so. Alexan seems okay with it, not too startled or unhappy at being hugged and kissed and braided and fed cakes. But eventually she cuts the ladies an awkward curtsey, and then scurries over to climb back into Carver's lap.

He has to balance his tea on the arm of a chair, making space for Alexan, and then she plasters herself to his armour while the ladies make 'awwww' noises, and Carver isn't sure at all what to do.

"Takes after her da, she does," says one woman, winking at him.

Carver feels his face heat. "She's not ... not _mine_ ," he says, and they all laugh.

"Nae with that mouth," one of them drawls. She's pretty, that one, with fine tilted eyes, and very red hair tumbled round her shoulders in a riot. "Her da's painted on every inch of her."

Like Garrett, Carver thinks, taking so hard after their father that it hurts to look at him. Carver knows he and Bethany always favoured their mother, because everyone always said so. People used to joke about it, how Carver was the only one who got his father's eyes and how that was all he had of him. But he knows too that it was only ever the colour of them that reflected his father, because the shape was the same as Bethy's, the same as Garrett's, the same as his mother's. The same as _Gamlen's_ , truth be told, and doesn't that feel weird to think. That he looks more Gamlen's son than his father's.

When Tristram and Xavia come back in the Knight Lieutenant seems anxious, almost tentative, and it's a shock to see him so solicitous, pouring his wife tea and pulling out a chair for her. She is, by contrast, wryly amused, though her expression tightens when she looks at the girl pressed so snugly to Carver's side.

"So, I'm to be a stepmother," she says archly, and the other ladies hoot madly. "A surprise, no?"

"Ach, not when you've a man as handsome as yours," someone says, and instead of being angry, which Carver expects, Xavia smirks, her eyes cutting up to where Tristram hovers at her elbow.

"I suppose," she says slowly, "it's unavoidable."

Tristram relaxes then, and shortly after he gives Carver permission to return to the barracks. 

One of the ladies, the pretty red-haired one, stands up, flicking her skirts nonchalantly. "I'll walk with you, ser Knight. I'm headed that way. If you don't mind, that is."

Immediately someone snickers, and Carver stands up very straight, wondering if this is exactly how it looks. From the grinning going on around the room, particularly Tristram's grin, he figures it probably is.

"Of course, mistress," he says, feeling his face heat, and it doesn't help that Tristram just straight-out chuckles at that. Bloody git. After Carver came with him and _everything_.

They go out. Carver doesn't offer his arm, but he wonders if he's supposed to. She doesn't seem to care either way, tucking her hands behind her back and sauntering along with her skirts swishing around her ankles. The sunlight glints off her hair, picking out copper highlights, and her smile is warm and welcoming, and altogether nice

Her name's Rosie, and she's a silversmith. "Journeywoman," she says, and she's a handful of years older than him but Carver admires her brown, freckled shoulders and the neat tuck of her waist. She's chatty, which helps, and Carver finds he likes chatting to her, likes her Starkhaven lilt and the brazen way she looks him over. Huh.

She seems to like him too. "What's that accent, boy-oh?"

"Fereldan," he tells her, and instead of jeering she smiles. 

"Oh? A dog-lord, are ye?" She says it kindly enough, so he nods. "Your lot are all mud and guts, they tell. Never do tell how pretty you boys can get, through."

Is that a compliment? Carver does his best to take it in stride, rolls his shoulders and eyes her sideways. "Don't know about that."

"What _do_ y'know, then?" she asks, her eyes crinkled up with amusement and so green. Maker, they're almost as green as--

He doesn't finish the thought, lifting his chin to look down at her instead. "I know a good place to get a pastry," he says, and her grin makes him think it was the right thing.

They stop, he buys her a fruit twist and one for himself, and they munch them down as they go. She's got a good appetite, smacks her lips when she's done, wiping flakes of pastry from her face with the back of one rough tan hand.

"So, ser Knight. You married, then?"

Starkhaven women are so _forward_. Carver ... kinda likes that too. "Not yet," he admits. "You?"

"Oh, aye." She wrinkles her nose. "He's long gone, though. Worthless rubbish of a man."

He doesn't know what to make of that, so he says nothing to it, just trudges on beside her.

She grins at him. "Look at you, all worriting. Good Chantry boy, are you then? Andraste had a husband, y'know."

That's completely different, and Carver knows it. "I'm a Templar," he says anyway. "Course I'm a 'Chantry boy'."

"Ah, but not a good one?" That's _definitely_ flirting. 

Carver shrugs. "Not very," he says, and it's worth it for the wry twist of her mouth.

"Well, in _that_ case." She stops, and gestures to a shop-front with an anvil painted on the sign. "Come see me some time. I'm a fair cook. If you're ever hungry."

Oh, _well_. "I get hungry."

Those green eyes practically sparkle with amusement. "Well, then. I suppose I'll see you when you do."

She goes in, and Carver watches the sway of her hips, the bounce of her hair, and thinks, _Yeah. All right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took a break to play Inquisition and honestly I haven't finished. But I'm back now, if anyone's still reading. Can't commit to a schedule -- we'll see what happens.
> 
> FYI, I'm not planning to include any Inquisition canon in this story, so it's going to stay very AU from here out.


	22. Chapter 22

Geary is sour when he finds Carver in the practice yard a few days later, sour and salty, and he salutes with a bad grace. "Reporting in, Knight Corporal."

Carver sets his feet, folds his arms over his chest, and does his best intimidating-officer impression. He's not sure how well it goes but, well, fuck it. "Hullo, Geary. Starkhaven treating you all right?"

"Well as can be expected, ser," Geary says warily. "Wasn't planning on coming back here again."

It takes an effort not to snort at that. "Yeah, well. Where are your friends?" Because Harrison and Uldred are nowhere to be seen.

Geary shrugs, and there's insubordination in it but also he looks nervous. "Don't know who you mean, ser. Got a lot of friends, here."

If that's a threat it's not a very good one. "The two who came from Kirkwall with you."

"Ser Uldred's sick," Geary tells him, and it sounds like a lie but Carver can't really call him on it. "Ser Harrison's ... busy."

"Too busy to see me, you mean?"

Geary shrugs again, and fuck, Carver wants to chew him out for it but he can't, not quite. "Couldn't say, ser."

"Fine." He'll get them sorted when he has a chance, but for now-- "I want you to see to Ser Lachlan. He's got a good arm on him, and he knows his Chant well enough, but he's never dealt with mages and he'll need some help with that."

Geary's snort is also insubordinate; he's skirting the line, honestly, but Carver lets it go for now. "No mages in Starkhaven, ser. Thought you'd know that."

It takes an effort not to growl at him, but Carver manages it. Somehow. "There's apostates out there, though. Someone has to round them up and everyone here's gone soft since the Circle burned down."

This gets him a strange look, as though Geary wants to argue but actually agrees with him and therefore can't. "Is that what we're doing, then? Apostate hunting?"

"If it needs doing. You got something better in mind?"

Geary grimaces, glancing up over Carver's shoulder in a familiar way that Carver's becoming reluctantly used to. "No, ser."

"Good." It's not really good, but it'll do.

When Carver tells Lachlan that he's been paired up with Geary, Lachlan makes a bitter face. "You done with me, then, ser?"

"What? What d'you mean, 'done'?"

"If you don't want me for practice, any longer."

There's something in it, some hint of resignation that makes Carver think, _People do this to you, just hand you off when they're sick of you, and you're used to it. What a fucking waste._

"Of course I'm not sodding _done_ with you." Lachlan tosses his head, wilful little shit that he is, but he looks kind of mollified all the same. "You'll spar with me, early mornings, and then I want Geary to walk you through what it's like to manage a mage. You've had lyrium?"

Lachlan doesn't quite roll his eyes but it's a close thing. "Yeah," he says, kicking petulantly at the ground. "Course I've had lyrium."

"But you've never used it against a mage."

He scowls. "No mages in Starkhaven, ser."

This bullshit again. "Yeah, right. Not a bleeding one. Because the mages who fled when the Circle burned down all vanished into the Fade, and no new ones _ever_ crop up in a city this size." That scowl deepens, blue eyes flashing blue fire at him. Lachlan doesn't like being mocked. Carver gets that; he's never been much for it either. "What's the duty of a Templar, Ser Lachlan?"

Lachlan _does_ roll his eyes then; Carver decides against calling him out for it. "To be the sword and shield of Andraste, _ser_."

"And when it comes to mages?"

"To guard against them. Ser."

"To guard them against themselves _and_ anyone who doesn't understand the difference between a mage and a maleficar," Carver corrects him, though honestly the Order is sometimes a bit shaky on this one. "If you think your job is to put mages in the ground then you might as well turn in your shield now."

Lachlan's mule-stubborn then, jaw out and his eyes gone tight and narrow. "Ser."

He's all right, really, too young for this and too damn handsome to scowl so bitterly all the time. Carver wonders what he might have been like if his father had taken an interest, and then shuts that train of thought down because _no_. "Yeah, well. You've got too much bloody potential to waste."

He doesn't give it much thought at the time, but the following morning, when they're working up a sweat in the yard, Lachlan steps off to eye Carver warily.

"What did you mean, potential?"

Carver blinks at him. "You need a lesson in basic Common?"

Lachlan swings his sword irritably. "Potential for _what_?"

"For, you know. Templaring. What did you think I meant?"

"So, standing around the Chantry with a stick up me arse?" Lachlan's mouth twists up, but the way his eyes crease make Carver feel odd about it. Like he knows this. It's familiar. 

"Fuck Chantry duty," Carver scoffs, leaning on the new practice two-hander he wheedled out of the Quartermaster. "Some bore of a Sister sermonising your ear off? Bullshit."

Lachlan's expression is slightly scandalised. "Yeah? Got a better offer, ser?"

"Maker's _balls_ , I do." Carver hefts his sword, gestures for Lachlan to come at him. "Have to teach you to Smite, first, but then I reckon you'll do just _fine_."

"At _what_?" Lachlan demands, and he's so suddenly furious that Carver just blinks at him. "You say that like there's any _point_ , as if any of it _matters_."

Carver can't help staring. "It matters."

"No, it fucking _doesn't_!" The flash of his teeth is all the warning Carver gets, and then Lachlan lunges. It takes an effort to keep him off long enough to lock his sword, but when he does Carver catches a shield hard under his chin for his troubles, and _fucking_ hell, he hooks a foot around Lachlan's ankle and heaves him over into the dirt.

They're neither of them in full armour, luckily or unluckily, and Lachlan's scrapped before but only with people who weren't trying to kill him, but his blood's up and he's savage, and Carver has to pin him down in the end, smothering him with his weight and a forearm across the windpipe.

Lachlan goes limp, blinking up at nothing and wheezing when Carver finally lets him go. He stays there in the dirt even when Carver sits up, straddling his thighs and ready to thump him one if he arcs up again. 

"You're a fucking idiot," Carver snarls at him, and Lachlan winces, just a little.

"Yes, ser."

"I should put you on report."

"Yes, ser."

Carver can't bear it. "What the bleeding _gash_ is wrong with you? You reckon there's no point to any of this? Then why'd you bother signing up?"

That gets his attention; Lachlan's eyes snap to his, burning, if blue eyes can be said to burn. "I didn't have any other choice."

"There's always choices," Carver says, and then rethinks that. "Some of them don't feel much like it, though."

Lachlan eyes him warily and then he nods, and Carver gets off him, hauling him to his feet and giving him a rough shove.

"You try that shit again and I'll have you digging out the latrines for a month, you got me?"

"Yes, ser. Sorry, ser," Lachlan mutters. 

It's a terrible apology and Carver just wants to shake him until his teeth rattle, and maybe he really should. He doesn't, though, and it might be for the best because two days later Lachlan corners him near curfew, makes a crisp salute and asks haltingly for a word with him.

"Go for it," Carver tells him, tucked into a corner of the mess with a book and the remains of his ale ration. Lachlan sits down gingerly, scowling at his hands like they've personally offended him, and then seems to nearly lose his nerve before sticking his jaw out like a portrait of stubborn youth.

"Why'd you join up, ser?"

It's not what Carver was expecting. He thinks about it, wonders how to answer the question without lying or inviting too many more questions. In the end he says, "Money was tight. And I liked the shiny armour," he adds because, well, it was true. What an idiot he'd been back then.

The junior knight looks vaguely unsatisfied with this. "Uh."

Carver shrugs. "What do you want, some story about how I saw Andraste's face in a bowl of soup and felt 'called to service'?" That's how Barker termed it, one time, and Carver had laughed so hard he'd inhaled a noodle. "I needed to take care of my mother. Every other option was shady, and I'd gone off shady. Shady was more my brother's deal. And I thought he was dead, then, so I bit the leather, joined the sodding Order. He showed up a month later with enough gold to buy a _mansion_ and, yeah. So much for that."

Lachlan looks even less satisfied with this, if that's even possible. All he says aloud though is, "Why'd you stay, then? Shiny armour?"

"Hah, no." Why did he? Just 'because' wasn't right. "I wanted to be something. I wanted ... purpose." And he'd seen it in Cullen, this staggeringly attractive _purpose_ that he'd wanted more than anything, though at the time ...

Back _then_ he'd thought he wanted to _be_ Cullen. Now, maybe, he just wants to be near him again. For all the good it does.

Lachlan's still watching him, eyebrows drawing down together. Carver clears his throat. "It's important, our duty. Mages ... they're not like the rest of us, not really. They're in the Fade half the time and they get these ideas or they get scared and normal people get hurt. But they're not all monsters, not just _born_ that way. So. That's where we come in. It's a duty. It's honourable. Don't fuck it up."

That frown intensifies, and then Lachlan tips his chin up, so like Barker for a moment that it makes Carver's chest ache. "How'd you fuck it up, then, to get sent here?"

Because everybody knows why Kirkwallers get sent down to Starkhaven. 

Carver drinks off his ale and there it is, that pang when he thinks about Paxley, made worse by the feeling that he hasn't thought about Paxley as often as he should have. And _then_ there's Bethany, and his father, and, ugh, it's _awful_.

"I let down one of my knights. Because we were friends and I was too soft on him." He fixes Lachlan with a hard look. "That's not going to happen again."

"We're not _friends_ , ser," Lachlan says. It's almost a sneer, that curl of his lip, but Carver thinks there's something in it, something new. Something he can work with.

"I'm serious, though, you pull shit on me like you did the other day you'll be up to your knees in bog-filth if you're not in a bloody cell, all right?"

Lachlan nods, and stands up. "Yeah, ser. Sorry, ser."

Still the worst apology ever. But it's a start, and after that Lachlan's attitude is less shitty-little-cockhead-who-thinks-he's-good and more cocky-little-shithead-who- _knows_ -he's-good and Carver doesn't mind it so much because _he is_. Plus, he gets on Geary's nerves something fierce and watching Geary twitch and splutter and fist his hands in frustration is hugely entertaining.

Best of all, Geary can't actually do anything about it but make complaints to Carver. "He's insubordinate and, and _annoying_ ," Geary growls, and Lachlan isn't so far away he can't hear that, his grin opening up wide and smug. "Just, for the love of the Maker, let me give him kitchen duty, or _something_."

"Lachlan, mind your senior," Carver says seriously, and Lachlan's grin vanishes, though his eyes never change.

"Yes, ser!"

"I mean it."

"I said 'yes', ser."

Carver scowls at him, and it's like water off a duck's back. "Don't think I won't put you over my knee," he threatens, and Lachlan makes a noise like he's trying not to snigger.

Geary gives Carver a sharp sidelong look, turns to eye Lachlan narrowly. "Fuck's _sake_ ," he mutters, and then he drags Lachlan off to go through the visualisation exercises necessary to channel lyrium into magic-dampening bursts without any actual magic to practice on.

Which leaves Carver with two absent knights who really _do_ deserve some kind of penance for insubordination.

He starts with Ser Uldred, who is, ostensibly, convalescing from a fever. 

"He's not in the infirmary nor the barracks," Carver complains to the duty Lieutenant. "Where is he if he's so sick, then?"

"He'll be at his Molly's," says the Knight Lieutenant, with a particular twist to his mouth that tells Carver exactly what he thinks of that.

Uldred's 'Molly' lives down by the docks. Carver takes Lachlan and Geary with him when he goes, though he's not really sure what help they'll be. Geary scowls about it the whole way, but Lachlan actually seems glad to be out of the Chantry compound, gawking at things and pretending he isn't.

The house is a fair sight worse than the house Xavia owns in the poor quarter, badly patched and painted though it's neatly kept, the path swept clean, a couple of small pots of Andraste's Grace by the door. There's a sign nailed up above the lintel, a threaded needle and something that looks like a misshapen letter H.

"What's that?"

Geary eyes it, shrugs. "The lady takes in washing and needlework."

Lachlan snorts. "I thought the Mollys got their money from their Misters," he says, and Geary rounds on him, his expression gone hard as flint.

"Don't you bloody call them that," he snaps. "Have a bit of respect for a woman who has to mind for herself."

For a moment Lachlan looks like he might protest but he holds his tongue. Carver ... isn't at all sure what to think.

His understanding is that in Starkhaven sometimes an unmarried bloke, or a bloke too long away from his wife, might find himself wanting some company, a home-cooked meal, and a warm bed with someone to cuddle in it. And, because apparently Starkhaven has strange ideas about unmarried women working for themselves, that's where the Mollys come in, willing to swap a bit of wifery for some coin to pay the rent and a pair of strong hands to do a bit of work around the house. It's like being married without actually being married. Sometimes it goes on for years. Carver doesn't quite understand why, then, they _don't_ just get married, but then again he doesn't really get any of it.

When he knocks there's a pause before the door's opened by a short woman in a work-apron, her hair neatly tied up under a bright scarf and knotted on top. She takes one look at Carver's uniform and rolls her eyes up melodramatically.

"For 'draste's _sake_ , you took your time." She turns about, gesturing for them to follow her in. "Walt! Getcher things!"

They find Ser Uldred sitting on the floor with a flagon of wine, a little boy in short trousers and a smock leaning on his shoulder. They're reading a book, or at least the boy is reading while Uldred watches. When Uldred sees Carver his expression flickers, but only for a moment before it blanks again. "Ser Carver."

"I heard you've been unwell, Ser Uldred. You seem to be better now."

Uldred takes the out he's offered. "Were only recent, ser."

"Then I'll have your report."

He breathes out, as if resigned, and stands up. His hand rubs over the child's head, absent, but the way he puts himself in front of the boy is deliberate. "Had a fever, ser. I'm free for duties. Now."

"Yeah, right," Carver mutters, not even a bit impressed. Uldred scowls and, honestly, Carver's getting well tired of all the scowling. _Next fucker who scowls at me gets a blighted penance,_ he resolves, and he scowls right back for good measure. "D'you know where Harrison's hiding himself?"

Uldred looks cagey. "Might do, ser," he says slowly. "Not for certain."

"All right, then. First job for you, get him to muster in the morning. Manage that, can you?"

He can practically see Uldred turn that over for traps. "Try my best, ser."

As they're leaving the woman gives him a grateful look. "Be good to get him out of the house," she says flatly, before shooing them out and shutting the door with a bang. Carver exchanges a glance with Lachlan, not sure what to think, but Geary chuckles.

"Something funny, Ser Geary?"

"Oh, _no_ , ser." Geary cocks an eyebrow at him. "Just thinking how sick the lady must be of his baggage. Not used to having him around so much, I reckon."

Which makes sense, Carver supposes.

Come morning muster, Carver's relieved to find Lachlan, Geary, Uldred _and_ Harrison waiting for him. Uldred and Harrison make an odd pair, the former's grey-touched mane of hair and scarred face in contrast to sharp, handsome Harrison. There's something ugly about Harrison, though, in the way he eyeballs Carver, his slightly-too-slow salute, the drawl of his 'Ser'. 

"Welcome back, Ser Harrison," Carver says, not meaning it and not bothering to hide it. "Got all your 'urgent business' out of the way?"

"Aye, ser." Harrison's eyes are pale, almost grey, and when he meets Carver's gaze he doesn't blink.

"Good." Carver looks them over, and thinks, _Shit,_ because this was the plan, wasn't it? Geary, who hates him, Uldred, who resents him, Harrison who ... it's not clear what's up with Harrison but Carver can see the disrespect in every line of his body. And Lachlan, who might like him better than anybody but still tried to punch him in the face.

_Maker's mercy on the lot of us._

"All right, lads," he says, though they're all, save Lachlan, older than him. "Let's talk about mages."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter might have Fenris in it.
> 
> But you're not getting anything fun for Valentines Day.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: endangerment of a child. See the chapter end notes for details.

At first Fenris thinks the ship can only be a help, but he soon realises it is, instead, a hindrance. Isabela is so thoroughly distracted by the necessary repairs and outfitting that she can speak of little else, and when Fenris broaches the issue of Starkhaven she stares at him as though he's gone mad.

"I can't just pick up and run off to Starkhaven," she protests. "I've a _ship_ , now. What if something happened to her while I was gone?"

"We could take the ship," Fenris insists, because that had been his meaning.

But Isabela laughs, tossing her hair over her shoulder and leaning back in her chair to grin at him. "Oh, dear sweet thing, Starkhaven's landlocked."

"Is it not on the River Minanter?"

"I can't sail the Bright Booty up the Minanter," she scoffs. "That's for _barges_."

"I fail to see why you cannot," Fenris argues, but she shakes her head.

"I _can't_. It's just not possible." She gives him a fondly indulgent look, which he hates ferociously. "Tell you what, once my girl's out of dry-dock and we've got ourselves a scurvy crew we'll take a trip up the coast and drop you off in Wycome. All right?"

Fenris is disgusted with her, not least for her failure to understand that it was _her_ he wanted, her company and friendship and, should his errand prove fruitless, the comfort of her sympathy.

Sebastian is no better. "I cannot go with you," he says regretfully, brow screwed down in his sincerity. "I have promised my cousin not to re-enter Starkhaven without permission, and I doubt he will grant it to me so soon." He does, however, agree to assist with planning, and that is when Fenis realises he has waited until too late in the season to make this journey. The pass through the Vimmarks will shortly be oversnowed, and the cost of a berth on a ship is prohibitive. 

So he waits, impatiently, hoarding his coin like a dragon to pay his way. Sebastian says the round trip may take months, in any case, and he needs to ensure Orana and Tully will be taken care of in his absence. Sebastian agrees to mind them for him, but the coin must still be gathered, so Fenris curtails certain pleasures to facilitate this, first lowering the quality of his wine and then rationing it, as it becomes clear how slowly his savings increase.

It is just as well, he supposes. Orana no longer tolerates his drunkenness nor his over-hung wallowing. She expects more of him, and he is glad of that, for both of them, even as he chafes beneath the weight of the delay.

When Sebastian suggests he simply ask Hawke for a loan, though, Fenris is resolute. "I _will not_ be in his debt. Nor yours, nor any man's." He must have said it firmly enough. Sebastian never suggests it again.

And so the days drag into weeks, into months, and then the water-pump breaks and Fenris must pay a surly dwarf to fix it, and the price of that is staggering. But he cannot let Orana draw at the public pump, cannot let her haul it back to the house in buckets, will not permit it. So, he pays the coin, and complains only to Sebastian about it and only when he is certain no-one else can hear.

Like today, in a tiny Chantry courtyard. Fenris had been waiting for Hawke to return to the estate because Hawke summoned him, but when he arrived Hawke was nowhere to be found -- eventually Fenris lost patience with him and left word he could be found at the Chantry before slinking away.

"Why must it be so _hard_? It is as though the Maker has thrown every obstacle in my path," he growls, clutching his hands into fists. If he could rend a thing to make this right then he would tear it to pieces and scatter the pieces like ashes. And _piss_ on the ashes.

Sebastian sighs, laying a hand on Fenris' shoulder. Fenris shakes him off; Sebastian sighs again, and his expression is oddly reluctant. "Perhaps He has."

Fenris stops dead in his pacing, turns to him. "How do you mean?"

"You might look at it two ways. Perhaps the Maker puts these obstacles before you so you can overcome them. And, in the doing, prove that you deserve the reward of your perseverance."

It sounds ... absurd. "That the Maker should take such interest in me," Fenris spits, with all the venom he can muster. "No. What is the other?"

Sebastian's reluctance is now palpable. He breathes deep, folds his hands, and looks Fenris in the eye with such _compassion_. "Perhaps it is not His will that you go to Starkhaven."

" _What?_ " Fenris cuts the air with one hand. "No. I refuse to believe that. Why would the Maker deny me this?"

"It's not for me, or you, to know the mind of our Maker," Sebastian says gently. He believes it, too, and Fenris finds himself unrepentantly angry at the thought that the Maker should mind him now only to prevent him from having the one thing that he wants above all else.

"Then your Maker is a fool." Sebastian flinches but Fenris ignores it. "Let him throw against me his worst. There is nothing that could keep me from this. You can tell your Maker to rot in the void."

He does not regret it, even when Sebastian makes a wounded sound, his expression wounded, his hands coming up in hurt curls as though _wounded_ by it. " _Fenris..._ "

But Fenris will have none of it, takes leave of him, and resolves not to come back until he finally has coin enough to pay his way and Orana's keep and some extra for emergencies.

Then Tully takes a chill and it is nothing, only a small thing, Orana says so. Fenris delays a little, however, wanting to see Tully well before he goes. Orana says he will improve with a little syrup, a little elfbark, a little care. Fenris can wait that long. When Tully is better he will go, and damn the Maker if he tries to stop Fenris this time.

Tully does not get better.

There is a sickness in Hightown, in Lowtown, worst in Darktown, and it strikes the elderly and the infirm and the poor, but worst it strikes the _children_. Fenris hears this but he does not make the connection until the sixth day, when he sees a woman with a cough turned away from a market-stall. 

"You're fevered," the merchant says, covering her mouth with her sleeve. "Get away with your plague!"

"But please," the woman begs, and then she's overcome by a rack of coughs, hands rising to her face and letting her sleeves fall to her elbows. Her forearms are red, spotted over with a rash bright and evil against her skin.

Tully has a cough. Tully has a fever. And Fenris recalls the red on his skin, the little pinpricks that dot his chest and belly, and he is suddenly afraid.

He goes back to the mansion. As soon as he opens the door Tully's thin, high wail cuts through him like a knife. He finds Orana in the kitchen, rocking her child, eyes hard-boiled and underhung with shadows. Fenris reaches out at once for the baby but Orana shakes her head. "No," she says.

Fenris doesn't know how to insist. "Please. You need to rest."

"I won't," she says, and she is firm but Fenris cannot bear to do nothing.

"Then, let me make you tea."

She permits this, and eventually permits Fenris to take the child, who is hot and limp and will not stop crying. The sound of it is relentless, maddening, and Fenris wonders how Orana has been able to stand it.

"Orana," he says, and she looks at him dully over the dish of broth and sop he has managed to force on her. "Tully is ill."

"He will be fine," she says, and now that Fenris is listening he hears the hope in it that he has mistaken for certainty.

"He will," Fenris tells her, though ... "but we must take him to a healer."

Orana stiffens. "Serrah," she says weakly, and he cannot tell if it is agreement or protest but he does not care. He bundles Tully up, helps Orana tie him to her chest, offers her his hand. She does not take it, palms curled around her son as he wails and wails.

Fenris had meant to go to the Gallows -- he may not be welcome there but surely they would not turn away a sick child -- but Orana heads toward the Chantry. There is an infirmary set up almost on the threshold, but it is ringed about by Templars and hemmed in by a crowd. As he watches, a figure in steel firmly pushes an elderly woman to one side, pointing down the stairs and shaking its helmeted head. And then, just as easily, the figure makes way in the crowd for a young couple in well-made woollens to come through, before stopping another man, barefoot and ragged.

They are turning away the elves. Fenris sees it but cannot believe it, although ... of course they are. Or, perhaps, only the elves who cannot pay.

He shoves his way into the crowd, which shoves back until they get a good look at him, armed and armoured, dragging Orana with him. "Ser Knight," he says sharply. The helmeted head turns toward him. "I have coin to donate in return for healing for this child."

The knight shakes its head. "There's no room."

Fenris gestures angrily at the couple only just admitted. "And for them?"

"No _room_ , elf," and the knight gives him a firm push.

How easy it would be to draw his sword. And what chaos would result from it.

"Is this then the Maker's work?" Fenris snarls, angry and afraid. "Will you look your Maker in the eye and say you have done his will?"

The knight steps forward, but then a figure in Chantry robes has pushed between them. "Knight Corporal, please!" It is Sebastian, and for a moment Fenris thinks, _yes_ , and, _thank-you_ , but Sebastian turns to him, a warning in his eyes. "Fenris, no." He takes Fenris' arm, pulls him to one side.

"You will not tell him to let me in?" The betrayal is like being struck in the face.

Sebastian runs his hands down Fenris' arms, as if feeling him out for injury. "You are ill?"

"No. Tully," and he cranes his neck to find Orana in the crowd. He catches a glimpse of her just beyond Sebastian's shoulder, and his heart calms a little. "I have coin, let me--"

"I have tried, for days," and that is when Fenris sees how haggard he is, how weary. His sleeves are grim with dirt, his hands shake. Has he too been ill? "There is no room, and the Revered Mothers have decided that humans take precedence over elves. Some of us have protested, but ... Fenris." He shakes his head. "There aren't enough healers. The Circle sent five but two of them took advantage of it to escape and Meredith will not let us have any more."

"Then ... if I take him to the Gallows," Fenris suggests but again Sebastian shakes his head.

"The Knight Commander has ordered the barge locked. She _says_ the risk of contagion in the Gallows is too great, and yet the Templars are permitted to come and go, so I find little weight in that." He squeezes Fenris' shoulder, his expression bleak. "I'm sorry. I can't help you. But," and he lowers his voice, leaning in to whisper hoarsely, "go to Anders."

Fenris shudders. "He will not help me," he hisses, despairing because-- "Sebastian. The sickness. Is it ... how many of them die?"

"Without care?" Sebastian shakes his head, and the turn of his mouth is grim enough he does not have to say more. "But Anders _will_ help you."

"Can you be certain of that?"

"... no." At least he is honest. "But I believe him a better man than he pretends. He is your best hope. Unless," and he hesitates, cheeks flushing a dark and shameful red.

"Unless?"

Sebastian will not look at him. "Unless you will put your trust in the Maker."

The Maker. Who Fenris cursed and ... no. "You think this is my fault. Because I called the Maker a fool."

"No!" If anything this makes him look more ashamed of himself, but Fenris feels it, cold in his gut, because this? This makes sense. "Fenris, the Maker would not punish a child for a thing you said in anger."

He does meet Fenris' eye and Fenris cannot bear it. "Would he not? Is that not how gods work?"

"Fenris," Sebastian begins, but Fenris pulls away, pushes through the crowd to collect Orana, and then he drags her out of it, through the streets of Hightown, the taste of bile thick on his tongue as his thoughts run like rabbits.

He challenged the Maker. The _Maker_ , and now Tully is ... He tucks his fingers against the child's head, careful of his gauntlets. Tully is still so hot, a furnace in his swaddling, and his crying has slowed to a long, heartrending whine. 

"Serrah?" Orana blinks at him, still exhausted, still so drawn. Is this Fenris' fault? It could be. "Where do we go?"

"Darktown," Fenris tells her, because Sebastian was right in that Anders is their best hope, perhaps their only hope.

She lets him pull her along in his wake, stumbling now and then, but when Fenris asks her if he might take the child she clutches Tully to her breast, shaking her head. 

Anders' clinic is full, humans and elves overflowing into the street. Not a secret, not even a little, but there is no sign of Templars and Fenris thinks, _Fortunate for him, and them, and us._

This crowd he cannot push through, but a grim-faced woman with her hair knotted into severe braids takes one look at Tully and ushers them inside. Anders has his hands hovering over a woman whose belly is swollen with pregnancy and whose face is covered with a familiar pin-prick rash, the light of his magic spilling from his palms and tugging Fenris' brands until they ache like a bad tooth. Eventually he straightens, and Fenris sees him waver, sees him catch himself on the edge of a table, sees the flash of blue fire in his eyes that is Justice shoring him up, and he bites the inside of his lip because, no, _Not now, do not begin with him now._

"Mage," he says instead.

The snap of Anders' head as it comes up looks sharp enough to hurt, but he blinks at Fenris for a moment as if he can't believe what he's seeing. " _What?_ I'm busy, you idiot." And he pales. "Is Hawke...?"

"Tully is sick," Fenris says, and Anders goes on just staring at him, as if he isn't making any sense. "He needs your healing. Will you heal him?"

For a moment, nothing. Then Anders laughs. It seems to take all his strength; he sinks onto the end of a cot, hands coming up to rub at his eyes. He's shaking, and his laughter sounds more like a man losing his mind than anything else. 

"What is funny about this?" Fenris demands, furious with him.

Anders shakes his head. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing." When he looks up his eyes are red-rimmed and raw. "So, you can't even be nice to me when you want a favour." Fenris has no reply for that, but it does not seem as though Anders wants one. "Give me one reason why I should do anything for you."

Fenris grits his teeth to keep himself from screaming. But, really, why _should_ he? What possible reason? "Because you are a better man than you pretend," he says stiffly, and all it does is make Anders cover his face again, shoulders shaking with can only be more hysterical laughter.

"Oh, Fenris, I'm really not."

It is unbearable. " _Please_ ," he begs, and he holds out his hands with the wrists up to show his sincerity. "Will you punish a child because you hate me? I have money. I have ... I will give you everything I have if you will _save him_!"

This only serves to make Anders look appalled. "I don't want your money." But then he pushes himself up, staggers a little before he rights himself. He comes over to murmur something to Orana, and twitches the cloth back to look at Tully's face. His expression twists, and Fenris feels that like a shard of ice sliding into his gut. 

"Can you?" Fenris forces himself to ask, though he doesn't want ... no, he needs to know _now_. "Is it too late?"

"No." For a moment-- "I can do it. I _could_ , but," and he casts his gaze angrily around the clinic, at the cots where sad bodies huddle beneath ragged blankets, at the people milling in the doorway. "Fenris, he's very, very ill. Without magic, there's no saving him."

"Then use magic!"

Anders looks startled, then resigned. "Of all the times for you to-- But, it doesn't matter. I'm out of mana. I don't have the _strength_ for it, and I can't ... I need to rest to get it back, but all these people," and he trails off, his brow drawing down. "I can't afford to."

"He will die if you don't," Fenris insists, but Anders shakes his head.

"And other people will die if I do." 

This, the one time Fenris has wanted Anders' magic. The irony of it is like a blow. "Lyrium?"

"It's addictive," Anders says, suddenly angry. "You know that as well as I do, Fenris. Anyway, I don't have any."

"Then use mine!" Fenris holds out his hands again, the bright lines that mark his palms catching the light.

Anders' shock is palpable. "I can't, just ... no."

"It can be done," Fenris insists, "you can draw on it. My master--" and he stumbles over the word because how long has it been since he called Danarius 'master'?

"I _won't_!" 

Fenris thinks he has never seen Anders so horrified but he does not have time for this. "Then give me a knife and I will cut it from my flesh myself!"

"Andraste's _twat_ , Fenris!" There, more horrified, and he stares at Fenris as though Fenris is a thing, hideous and mutilated as he is. "Don't! I won't, and you ... no. Just," he takes a breath, grey and wan as a ghost. "Go to the estate. Hawke has lyrium in his study. Get me some and ... I'll do everything I can for Tully."

Fenris hesitates. "Swear it."

"Oh, for the love of-- You have my _word_ , Fenris. Just be fucking quick about it, all right?"

It's better than he could have hoped, so Fenris nods, and runs out into the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very sick child. If you'd rather not be in suspense about how that turns out, see chapter 24 notes.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: A very sick child. If you'd rather not be in suspense about how that turns out, please see the end notes.

Hawke is absent and Bodahn does not seem to understand.

"I'm sure young Messere Hawke keeps his lyrium on his person, as with all mages."

But Fenris thinks, _Anders said--_ "He keeps some in his study."

Bodahn shakes his head. "I'm sorry, messere, I can't help you with that. If you'll try the Gallows--"

Fenris does not have time for this. "Let me look, then, myself!"

Bodahn seems uncertain. "If you'll wait a moment, messere," and he vanishes into the house, leaving Fenris to pace in the hall. _Be quick about it,_ Anders said, and every moment Fenris is delayed is a heartbeat he may never get back. A heartbeat for _Tully_.

What is the blighted dwarf doing? Asking Hawke's mother for permission? She will help him, he is almost certain, though ... though she is human, and perhaps ... perhaps he does not know her as well as he thinks. And, in any case--

"Fenris! What in Thedas do you want lyrium for?"

Merrill comes tripping down the stairs, dressed only in a short tunic and leggings, and she looks so wholesome and so healthy that Fenris hates her, worse than usual. "Anders sent me for it."

"Anders?" Her eyes widen, gleaming at him with that _thing_ the others mistake for innocence. "Is everything all right?"

"No," Fenris tells her, but instead of waiting for him to explain her eyes simply go wider, and she nods.

"All right." She opens up the study door and goes in, letting Fenris trail after her. Then she opens a drinks cabinet, and takes out a decanter full of rich blue liquid that can only be one thing. Carver always said lyrium had a smell, a sort of back-of-the-throat visceral something to it, but Fenris cannot smell it, cannot taste it on the air, can only feel the way that lyrium sings to his own, both of them sighing and shuddering in a disharmonious duet that sets his teeth on edge.

There is a phylactery on a shelf; Merrill takes it down and fills several phials, quickly, deftly, capping each of them tight and sealing them with soft wax torn from a sheet. "Is that enough?"

Four of them and Fenris does not know. "Perhaps," he says, and Merrill must hear his uncertainty because she fills and caps two more before putting the lyrium and the phylactery away. The filled phials she ties up in a cloth, winding it between each to keep them safe from breakage, and then she hesitates. "I'll come with you, shall I?"

"Why?"

"Well, if Anders needs help. It's the clinic, isn't it? I can _help_."

Fenris stares at her. "He will not welcome your help."

"He took _yours_ ," she says tartly, and then she's walking away, lyrium tucked into a pouch. "Do I have time to get dressed?"

"No," Fenris says, so desperate to be gone that he cannot keep still, shifting his weight from foot to foot in impatience. "Merrill, if you must come, come _now_."

"I'll just get my staff, then," and she's already halfway up the stairs so Fenris curls up fists of his hands and grinds his teeth until she comes back.

"We must _go_ ," Fenris insists, when Merill opens the door into the kitchens.

She turns that false-innocence on him again, eyes wide as saucers. "So let's _go_. The tunnels are faster, anyway."

She takes him down into the cellars, opens a secret door in the wall, and ... it is much faster. Dank and cold, and dark enough that he is glad of her magelight, but faster, maybe only half the time it would take to travel above-ground. 

And Fenris was right; when Anders sees Merrill his expression tightens. "What are you doing here?"

"Helping," she says, ignoring the way he looks at her. She glances around the clinic, mouth turned down. "You'll let me help, won't you?"

"There's no place for you here!" But the flash of blue in his eyes makes it clear who is responsible for that and, in any case, Merrill just frowns at him.

"Su-urely it's all right for you to take my help. Now? With," and the flicker of her eyes takes in the awfulness of it all, "everything?"

"You will not corrupt these people."

"Of course not." She takes out the lyrium, unwrapping the phials with neat, sharp twists of her hands. "I brought a lot. Is that all right? Hawke won't mind."

Anders stares at her, and then, surprisingly, he says, " _Merrill_ ," and for just a moment Fenris sees him falter into his humanity, the blue fire flickering away and his eyes just ... very human. "Yes. Please, help me."

"Of course," she says, but the way she touches him when she says it is neither shy nor bold, just familiar, sure, like a lover, and Fenris _does not understand_ so he rejects it.

"Where is Tully?"

It comes out a shout; Anders turns sharply to look at him, and the rush of emotion in his face is confusing.

"In the back room. I put them both ... Fenris, he's all right for now, but let me," and he opens up a phial, takes a sip from it, grimaces. "I need to tend him again."

Fenris follows on his heels, Merrill behind, and they find Orana sitting on a cot in the room Fenris thinks might be Anders' own, Tully in a welter of blankets and sleeping, _Maker, please let him be only sleeping._

Anders sighs, working his fingers, and then he kneels down to press them to Tully's brow and his belly. "Give me a moment."

The rip of Anders' magic nearly pulls him under, and normally Fenris would distance himself from the well of it, the deep-drawing abyss tugging firmly at his markings like a leash bringing him to heel. But no. However it feels he cannot leave Tully, lying quiet beneath Anders' hands, nor Orana, watching with this pale, withered expression he wishes he could tear from her, if only... 

Then it is done. Anders reels back, grey and awful, and Merrill catches him against her. She is so slight, it is ridiculous to think she can take his weight, but magic blooms in her and then she is easing him into a chair, hands going gentle to his jaw. 

"Are you all right, lethallan?"

Anders looks up.

Fenris cannot see that look, so he turns away. "Tully," he says, hard and firm as he dares.

Anders takes a moment. "He'll be fine, for now. Too much too soon would be ... bad." And Anders clears his throat, tries to stand, Merrill up under his arm like a crutch. "He'll be _fine_ , Fenris. I gave you my word."

But he sounds so shaken, and Fenris cannot believe him. Orana said the same thing, and -- venhedis, _Orana_.

Fenris ducks down to see her face. "Orana." In Tevene. "Sister, do you hear?"

She sits on the end of the bed, one hand smoothing over Tully's limbs as though easing him into sleep, but... "All will be well," she says, and Fenris does not like the tone of it.

"Sister," he says again, hoping to pull her out of it, but she leans against him and does not look up.

"The Maker loves us not enough," she tells him, watching Tully so intently. "For what we are. And what we do." She turns her face away, but her hand is still smoothing over the child, over his fat belly, his thighs. "Nothing is left to offer, now, but sacrifice."

In Tevene it is such a powerful old word. Fenris takes a moment to comprehend, but when he does he does not know what to make of it. "I would give any thing," he says, hoping she understands.

She nods, tucking the swaddling cloths neatly around Tully's chest, and stands up.

"Where are you going?" She does not answer. Fenris glances at the baby, watching the rise and fall of his chest and feeling ... too much, and too little. "Orana, shall I stay with him?"

"No," she says. "It's not necessary."

She sounds so hollow. He follows her out into the clinic, where Merrill and Anders are already bickering. She goes to the corner where there are elves, gathered together in a knot. They have made a shrine, just a little thing, a crate on its end with a small stonework statue of Andraste balanced atop it. There is a cloth over the box, a brazier before it, choked with ashes and the remains of things he supposes were offerings.

Behind him, Anders says angrily, "I can't have much more, Merrill, you _know_ that. But I--"

Merrill sounds so calm. "Then let _me_ drink the lyrium and you take magic from me."

Fenris tunes them out, watching Orana move gently through the gathered elves to kneel on the floor. She reaches up, starts to take the pins from her hair, unwinding it until it falls in limp shanks over her shoulders.

"What are you doing?" She ignores him, or maybe does not hear him. " _Orana._ "

A woman with sharp ears and sharp eyes hushes him roughly. "Leave her be."

Orana takes out her belt-knife, lifts it to her scalp, and cuts. The length of hair goes into the brazier and the smell is awful, but-- "Orana, no."

But she doesn't heed him, just keeps on slicing locks haphazardly away. Each piece goes in, until the air is rank with the stench of it, and no-one stops her, no-one complains. Fenris knows what she's doing, but it isn't until she's done and lowers her head to pray that he admits to himself why.

Sacrifice. At least it was only hair she put to the knife.

When she's finished she gets up, goes back into the room with Tully, so strange with the ragged ends flaring about her face. Fenris stays, staring into the fire as the others kneel and offer up their flowers and herbs and scraps of cloth.

The woman who hushed him clears her throat, eyeing his chin. "Dalish?" 

He cannot look at her. "No."

She waits for him to explain, and when he doesn't she goes on. "He's yours, then? The little boy."

 _No,_ he thinks, but, "Yes," he says, because it is as true as the truth, if not more so.

She gives him a sympathetic look, touching his arm very gently. "Then, if you have an offering, go ahead."

He has nothing. There is nothing of value that he could trade the Maker for this, nothing, except--

_I would do any thing._

Only one thing that matters as much as this.

He goes forward and they make room for him, but he cannot make himself kneel, not to the Maker nor his Bride nor anyone, except ... except maybe one person who would never ask it of him.

The parchment, when he takes it from beneath his chestplate, where it has lain against his heart, is ragged and smudged. He knows it, in any case, every word committed to memory.

_Carver. I know you are not one to be wooed with soft words._

Is this it? Must he truly? Is the Maker so petty and demanding?

Is this Fenris' _fault_?

_I will do any thing you ask, if you will only look upon me with kindness._

But, it would be so like a god to demand of him the only thing he wants for himself.

_If you will have me, I am yours._

He holds the paper to the coals, watches it catch and flare, holds it until his fingers scorch and the metal of his gauntlet grows hot enough to hurt before letting go.

There. Done. He will not go after Carver, if this is the price.

_Maker, are you satisfied?_

It should hurt more, he thinks, but the ache in him is dull, muted by resentment and anger and weariness. He goes back, finds Orana sitting on Anders' bed, worn thin beneath her ragged crown. She is humming something, a low lullaby, stroking Tully's brow, his chest, his little arms and legs through the cloth.

"He will be fine," Fenris tells her, because if he is not ... then Fenris will go to the Maker and ... and what? Demand satisfaction of him? Such a useless threat. As though there is anything Fenris could do.

This, he thinks, is what Sebastian has always meant when he said that the Maker demands submission.

 _In this,_ Fenris resolves, _from me, this once. If it will save him._

He breathes in. "He'll be fine."

Orana nods, though she does not look up.

* * *

Anders heals him three more times before the dawn, and in the morning Tully is awake, alert, and hungry enough that he is fractious, demanding of his mother who is too bleary to mind him. Fenris cradles him in his lap, feeds him a milky gruel Anders had his assistant make for the purpose, which Tully does not like and mostly refuses. Fenris is patient, though, glad Tully can _be_ fractious, even when Tully spits gruel over them both and makes angry sounds of protest.

When she has the strength, Fenris takes Tully and Orana home, and then he coaxes her upstairs, into his bed, and they curl about Tully above the blankets. Tully is weak but _alive_ , and restless until his exhaustion overcomes him and he goes to sleep, safe between them.

Fenris cannot sleep, simply watches him, too tired to do anything but watch, too anxious, still, to rest. Until suddenly he wakes, and realises he must have drifted off. The light is muted, late afternoon, gold clouds showing through the hole in the ceiling. Orana is sitting up, with Tully at her breast, still so weary but with colour in her face again and how good it is to see.

"Serrah," she says, thin as paper.

Fenris has to wet his throat before he can answer. "Are you hungry? Let me make you tea."

She accepts tea, and some stale bread spread with bean-paste, and when Fenris gets up again, reaching for his sword, she rouses enough to ask him where he's going.

"There is something I need to do."

The clinic is still full, still overwhelmed, but Merrill has taken it over. The elves, it seems, listen to her, so she has enlisted them, and she enlists him just as smoothly. Anders, she says, is sleeping, so Fenris allows her to make use of him. He takes off his armour to do so, rolls up his sleeves and then it is emptying slops and scrubbing things, burning waste in the alleyway outside. It is dark by the time Anders is up again, and when he staggers out of his closet he seems appalled to find Merrill and Fenris making up another pallet out of blankets and straw donated by the families of the afflicted.

"What are you doing here? I healed your boy, Fenris, he's as hale as he's ever going to _get_."

Fenris nods, finishing the work before going to him. "Mage," he says. It has no effect, not anymore, but the purse Fenris presses on him seems to. "Take this."

"I told you, I don't want your _bloody_ money!"

But Fenris cannot let him refuse this. "I have no use for it. I had meant," but Anders does not need to know for what it was intended, only that it is now useless to him. "If you will not take it then I must donate it to the Chantry. And they do not deserve it."

Anders stares at him, but his hand closes on the purse, in the end. "You could have thanked me, instead."

He's right. "All my gratitude is yours. I am," and he hates to say it, but it is true, "in your debt." It is almost worth it for the look on Anders' face.

Fenris dons his armour and leaves, then, unwilling to bear the weight of Anders' disbelief, of Merrill's curiosity, and eager to be home. With them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tully will be fine, I promise.


	25. Chapter 25

Anders does not exactly exile her from the clinic, but he makes it very clear she should go. 

Merrill chooses not to argue with him about this. She touches hands with the elves that want it, a few of the humans who seem to want it too, and if they believe there is some blessing to be gained from touching her then Merrill won't tell them otherwise. They have so few things to believe in -- when their Maker abandons them and when they will not believe in magic, cannot bring themselves to do so -- so she will not take from them this thing, though she knows it to be false. Truth is relative. Belief is powerful. She _will not_ take it from them.

She goes back to the estate. Bodahn asks if she is well, offers her food and a bath, and she accepts both because they are offered and she wants them. Still she does not like the way they are offered, as a convenience to her as if she is ... no, she is no better or worse than Bodahn or Sandal or anyone.

But she bathes, eats her dinner, and feeds scraps to Pawsha despite the knowledge that Pawsha is well fed, better fed than the refugees in Darktown or, honestly, the elves in the alienage.

She goes to bed after that because she is so very tired, leaving the door ajar for Pawsha to come and go, and she sleeps for a long time. She has ordinary dreams: chasing after halla-fawn in the forest; climbing the Frostbacks with Mahariel; sorting dried beans; Tamlen, oh, handsome, wily, brave Tamlen. They are comforting, but behind them is the feeling that she is missing something, that there is more to this, and she waits for it.

It is strange when it comes, a tug at her in a place she had not realised could be tugged. She follows it, curious, coaxed out of her dream and into the space between. There -- Anders pulses, bright and demanding, all over mint and cooling-comfort struck through with a needy, desperate ache that ... is that her? Is that how he sees her? Is this her _scent_?

He seems at a distance, maybe sleeping on a cot in his clinic, but to someone like her the distance is insignificant. Or, perhaps, he is significant enough to her for it only to seem so.

When she finds him he is in his circle of trees in the snow, hacking away at one grown thick and gnarled on one side of the clearing. He stops when he sees her, arm gone slack with his fingers loose about the haft of his axe.

"Merrill," he says, and then the axe has vanished, his hands coming up to greet her as though she really has been invited. "You came. I wanted you, but I didn't think you'd come."

"I felt you call," she tells him, but then she has to put down the axe that appeared in her hand, sets it down on a stump and goes up to him. "Did you think I'd ignore you?"

"No. _Yes._ But, no, not really." He makes a vague gesture that she wishes she could understand, and then his hand has caught in her sleeve, demanding again. "I wanted you here, but I didn't know how to ask."

She understands that, at least, and her hands go of themselves to catch at his, fingers twining together. "I came. For you."

"Thank-you. And thank-you for everything you ... Merrill, you didn't have to come to the clinic." They both know, so she says nothing, but the press of his hands is insistent. "I didn't know I needed you, but I did, and I'm glad you came."

"Be kinder to Fenris," she tells him, meaning it very much. "He's so bad at asking."

"I hate him. He hates me. He hates you too, not for yourself but only because of what we are."

He's right, but it is more complicated than he makes it. "People like us hurt him very badly. Imagine if you blamed everyone who wasn't a mage for the things Templars did to you."

"And if you blamed all humans?"

Again, he is right, but Merrill has come to terms with this, and it is part of what she meant. "It would be unfair." And, of course, what is always between them. "If we blamed all blood mages. Or all abominations."

He steps back, taking back his hands and tucking them close to his chest. "You still think of me as an abomination." Just a fact, just a thing he says to her, but she wants him to understand, and that is complicated at best.

"Abomination is a human word."

"And I'm human. Do you have a word for it, in Dalish?"

"Not a word. But," and she pauses, because this is important. "The concept is different. Instead of cursing someone for, for becoming something, we mourn them. _Bora'ghilanan._ Paths of the lost."

The crease of his face is pained and painful. "Am I lost, then?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" She holds out her hands, holds them still even when he doesn't take them. "And you have Hawke."

"Do I?" He presses his fingers to his face, eyes gone wide with anguish. "I don't know, anymore. I think I'm losing him. Not to you, but," and he catches her hands, squeezes them too tight. "He can't tell, you know. He thinks Justice is a lever I can throw, or a glyph to be activated. He doesn't understand and I can't tell him because he _doesn't listen._ "

"Do you want me to tell him?"

But Anders looks at her as though she's hurt him. "Tell him what? That I'm losing my mind? Why would he believe you?"

"If I told him how I visit you," she says, but Anders shakes his head violently.

"No. You mustn't. He'll tell Justice, and then ... I'll never see you again. Justice won't let-- Andraste's pants, Merrill, if you leave me here I really will--" but he breaks off, mouth thinning to nothing. For a moment he holds his peace, and then he tugs her hand. "Come, let me show you something."

She follows him through the paper-dry snow, lets him pull her along. The Fade twists as they go; suddenly they're rounding the side of a house and Anders lets go of her to stoop down. He takes a piece of wood from the corner, down low on the base, and then he looks up.

"You'll have to be smaller, or we won't fit." He's young now, she realises, much, much younger than she, only a child. Four or five if he were Elvhen, but for a human? Eight? Ten?

She makes herself smaller, and crawls into the space beside him.

It's dim but not dark, Fade-lit, and cramped but cosy. Small-Anders wriggles around until he's on his belly, looking out through a crack in the wood, and he beckons her up beside him. "You can see the main path, here. The whole of the village about their business. Or you could, if this was real."

She looks, sees only shadows and ghosts, Anders' memories of this place. It feels safe here, comforting, but with a bitter sadness beneath it. A refuge. From something. Life, she suspects.

"I knew I wasn't really like them," Anders says quietly. "It never felt ... and I didn't fit in. I asked too many questions. I didn't know how not to. They all seemed so stupid, so I was," but he stops himself. "My father's father had three books, old dirty things, but he taught me to read them. And then he banned me from reading them, because I kept asking him why this thing happened this way, instead of that." He leans his head on Merrill's shoulder, not looking at her, watching the ghost-people come and go along the path. "One of the books had a story in it about a girl who prayed until Andraste came to take her away. I can't remember why, now, but her family had been cruel to her. And my father was very strict, so eventually, after he'd been ... more than usually strict, I came in here to cry it out. I was so angry with him. I wanted to leave, but I wasn't stupid enough to think I could just walk down the mountain. So I prayed as hard as I could." He sighs, heavy and heartfelt. "What a little fool I was."

Merrill touches his wrist. "What happened?"

He shakes his head; the house flickers around them, gone from whole to a blackened husk, everywhere except where they lie. "That's how I found out I was a mage." It flickers back, safely cocooning them again, but the scent of char and smoke persists, impossible to ignore. "I got what I wanted. The Templars came within the sevenday to take me away." He laughs, bitterly. "They locked me in the woodshed until then, can you believe it? If I hadn't been so terrified I could have burned that down too."

"It wasn't what you wanted," she says softly.

He swallows. "No."

"It's all right to know that now. It wasn't your fault."

"I know. New mages make mistakes. But if we were allowed to learn without being locked up like animals," he says angrily, "then things like this wouldn't _happen_."

It's such an old argument and she can't disagree. Instead-- "You felt safe here."

"Yes."

He still feels safe here, she can feel it too, the welcoming warmth of his dream, the Fade curling soft and comforting about them. "Thank-you for sharing this with me."

"You're all I have," he tells her, apologetic.

She doesn't mind. "I hope it's enough," she says, and he sighs, leaning against her silently until she has to go.

* * *

Merrill dislikes the dress, too stiff, too tight, too awkward, and she politely declines.

Leandra, however, is insistent. “You simply cannot come to the table in chainmail, dear.”

“Can’t I? Will it make the food taste funny? It’s never done that before so I don’t understand.”

It is always worrying when Leandra makes that face, the Marethari face, the one Merrill has no defense against save stubbornness. “It is inappropriate for the status of our guests.”

Merrill cannot help her scoff. “Carver always wore his armour.”

“The armour of an officer is acceptable. Yours is not.”

It’s easy now to open her eyes very wide, this wildly innocent look that everyone expects and no-one suspects. “Because it’s Dalish armour? Or just because I’m an elf?”

Leandra’s expression shutters, as it always does, as though Merrill is the one being difficult. “Because it is not respectable enough for a dining room,” she says flatly. “Garrett can explain it to you, if you insist on misunderstanding me.”

Merrill thinks she’s won this round, all through the morning and into the afternoon, but when Hawke comes home she hears them in the kitchen, Leandra’s voice rising in frustration. Hawke seems calm enough, teasing her a little, but Leandra will have none of it, and Merrill hides behind a corner, hears the sharp slap of a palm against wood.

“--listen to me!”

“Mother, all I _do_ is listen to you, and all I hear is the same thing. I’m making you unhappy, again. Please, tell me what you want from me this time. Another estate? One for Gamlen, maybe. Or -- shall I fetch Carver back from Starkhaven? You must _miss_ him so.”

“Don't try to make this about your brother! Maker’s mercy, Garrett, sometimes--"

“Sometimes what? No, do go on. Tell me again how I’ve failed to live up to your expectations.”

“... That isn’t true, darling, and you know it.”

“It _is_ true, Mother, and _you_ know it, or at least I suppose you must because you keep saying it.” Leandra says nothing to this, and Merrill dares not look. She shouldn’t even be listening, but she cannot tear herself away. Garrett goes on, his voice now tight and angry. “I suppose I’ll just raise Bethany from the dead, then, shall I? Father never did approve of blood magic, but we all make exceptions where we _must_.”

And that was another slap, but not against wood this time.

Another pause. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Leandra sounds so weary. “So you should be.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that you _are_ disappointed. Stuffing Merrill into a dress and teaching her to curtsey won’t change anything.”

“I just want you to grow up, Garrett! Take responsibility for your life. You can’t keep on like this forever, chasing slavers and criminals instead of minding your assets. You are my heir and, and the _Champion of Kirkwall_. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Not really. Discounts at merchants, for the most part, and people asking me favours. Some twit with a lute wrote a song about it, and the chorus doesn’t scan at all well.”

“Can you take nothing seriously? Is that why you persist with these ridiculous liaisons? Is nothing sacred to you?”

“I wouldn’t call them ridiculous. Merrill can seem a bit strange, but I assure you she is anything but ridiculous. And Anders, well, he _pretends_ to be ridiculous, but really, no.”

“It isn’t who they are but _what_ they are. And the two of them at once -- Garrett, you must see how inappropriate it is.”

“At once? What a marvelously filthy idea.”

“Garrett!”

“No, Mother, listen to _me_.” His voice drops down low, but Merrill hears him very clearly all the same. “I’ve already made my choices, and I won’t be changing them to suit you, which I would thank you to attempt to understand given the choices you’ve made yourself. I’ll play along with your game of houses, make small talk with your friends and your enemies, support you in every way I can. But you’re not going to get your society wedding, not from me, and almost certainly not from Carver either. If you want one so badly you'll have to remarry yourself."

She is silent, the silence stretching out, and Merrill doesn’t know if she should stay or go or be upset on Leandra’s behalf or glad on her own. Then-- “You cannot speak for your brother. He may yet fall in line with what I wish of him.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t get your hopes up there. It wouldn’t come as a shock to me if he ended up back together with Fenris, if Fenris ever pulls his head out of his arse. Your golden boy’s in _love_.”

“Don’t swear, darling. And I hope he isn’t -- Fenris is no more appropriate for him than … well.”

“Honestly, I can’t think of anyone _more_ appropriate. They're both so... But what would I know?” Then he clears his throat, voice rising up again. “Anyway. If Merrill wants to come to your dinner, she can wear whatever she likes. And if she _wants_ a dress, I’d say you’re better off getting Isabela to take her to a dressmaker than trying to make her wear one of those fussy things all the noble girls are so fond of. And if Merrill doesn’t want to come, well, I’m sure Isabela can be bribed to make up your table.”

Merrill knows then that he is aware she's listening, and he doesn't mind, and she is grateful because... He isn't angry with her. She peels away, goes up to her room, and she _thinks_. 

She has questions for him, so many, and she feels satisfied in that he understands her, but also guilty.

It's all so complicated. _If he were elvhen..._

She goes to him later, finds him in his study in a chair by the fire with a wide glass of something amber in his hands. She comes up behind him, swelling her magic a little in warning; he does not stir, but he lets tendrils of his own magic reach out for her in greeting. She leans over the back of the chair, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and leaning down to press her face into the side of his beard.

“Mmm. Hullo, little bit. Do you fancy coming to Mother’s party?”

“I want to talk to Isabela about a dress, first,” she admits, and he chuckles, rubbing her arm with his palm.

“Well, we have time for that. When you pick a colour, I’ll have a tunic made to match.”

She stretches her neck to rest her chin on the top of his head. “Ha-awke,” she starts, but then she falters.

“Oh, _that’s_ not terribly ominous. What’s up?”

She sighs. “I want to ask you something, but I can’t ask it if you’re looking at me, and if I can’t see your face when you answer it I don’t think I’ll know whether or not to believe you.”

“Sounds reasonable enough.” He squeezes her wrist. “Why don’t you come sit in my lap? I’ll close my eyes, and you can ask me, and then I’ll open them when I answer. All right?”

He really does understand her, or at least he tries, which is more than anybody else does. So she comes around, settles into his lap, with his arms around her like a scarf. He rests his head on her shoulder, eyes closed, and he smiles.

“When you’re ready.”

She takes a breath, gathering her courage, and then-- "Do you still love me?"

He tenses, and then his eyes snap open, head coming up to just stare at her. " _Merrill_. Maker, do you have to ask?"

She nods, unable to speak, and his mouth wrenches into something she has come to understand is, from him, regret.

"I'm so sorry." For a heartbeat she thinks ... but he goes on at once. "I do still love you. Do you still love me?"

He sounds so... She nods, fingers finding his jaw and running along it. "Yes. Ver-ry much."

" _Good_. That's good." He hugs her, pressing a kiss to her cheek, dark eyes coming up wide and earnest. "You scared me for a moment, there." And then he hesitates, his expression crumpling with uncertainty. "I've loved you all this while. I thought you knew."

"I _thought_ , but," and she can feel her cheeks heat, "I needed to be sure."

"I suppose," he says quietly, "I'm not very good at saying things I mean. Oh," and he makes a vague gesture, "I'm good at _saying_ things. But only, really, when they don't mean a damn thing."

It's true, and she knows it of him, knows how he prevaricates when pressed, how he deflects. And this is a part of him, beside the parts she loves, still him. "So," she says, moving back to her point, "I know you love Anders, too."

He is silent for a moment, and then he says, "Yes. I do." He shakes his head, his expression suddenly grim. "I told you before, though. I could never choose."

Merrill nods, because she doesn't actually want him to. "That's all right. I don't mind." The tension goes out of him. She goes on. "But you _do_ love him and... I'm worried about him."

Hawke hesitates, eyes narrowing. "How do you mean?"

But she can't tell him, can she? "He's so lonely. And alone. And Justice--" but Hawke shakes his head, suddenly relieved, and Merrill breaks off.

"Don't worry, I've got Justice under control. We have an understanding."

No, no. "I think it's killing Anders." There, she has finally said it aloud. "We should do... The plan. It's to separate them, isn't it? Isn't that why we're doing all of this?" Another thing never said aloud. "All this with demons. It's to help Anders, without hurting Justice. Isn't that the whole point?"

Garrett looks so ... so _caught_. It's almost funny."Ye-es. That's the gist of it."

"We should do it _now_. We should rescue them both. Isn't that what we do?"

He heaves in a breath, not looking up. "It's a little more complicated than that. And, to be fair, neither Anders nor Justice want that. If either of them did, then I would, but they _don't_ , so ... give me some time." He smiles, and the warmth of his hands running the length of her arms is comforting. "When they're ready, we'll do it. Not before."

"I think ... maybe Anders _is_ ready."

Hawke seems surprised. "Really? Did he tell you so?"

"No-o," she says, though, is that a lie? "But maybe ... maybe Justice won't let him."

He looks so relieved. "Oh, no, Merrill, it doesn't work like that. Justice can't control him, not like that."

"He can," Merrill argues. "You've seen him do it. He comes over all blue cracks and he makes Anders do all kinds of things."

"But only when he's in control," Hawke insists, smiling at her. "The rest of the time, it's just Anders."

"It isn't! Hawke, please, listen to me." But she doesn't know how to say it without telling the secret, and Anders asked her not to, and she _can't_. "I know you think Justice is a benevolent spirit but he's _not_. He can't be. They aren't meant to be together like this, not like _this_. They're corrupting _each other_. If you love them, either one, then we have to help them or we'll lose them both."

Hawke looks unconvinced. "I can't just do that, Merrill. It would like ... if Carver--"

She doesn't let him finish. "If Carver had a hook in his head and we took it from him even though he said no?"

There, she's angered him now. "That was for his own good."

"This is for Anders' good!"

"Anders can make this decision for himself," Hawke insists, brow drawing down dark like a thundercloud.

"And Carver couldn't? So, it's all right to do things like that to Carver. Because, why? Because he's not a mage? Because he's _normal_?" She pushes herself up out of his lap, angry herself, and he tightens his grip on her but she slithers away.

"Because he's Carver! Maker's _breath_ , Merrill, you can't think we should have _left_ it there!"

"No! I don't! And this is the same! Can't you see?"

"It's not time, yet. We _can't_. Do you want them to end up like Danarius?"

"Better for Anders to be like Danarius than dead!" Though, Danarius ended up dead all the same.

Hawke stares at her. His expression seems to crack like a mask, and she spies something behind it she's rarely seen from him, something that might be fear. "Merrill. Please? Don't leave me. I can't lose you too."

Why would he even say that? "Of course I'm not! Don't be so ... this is about _them_."

"I know," and he leans forward on the edge of his seat to reach out for her. "I know. We'll save them. We'll perfect the spell, the whole ritual. But we can't separate them until we can be _sure_."

"And if it's too late then?"

"It won't be," he says, firm again, so certain of himself as he reels her in. But that's a lie, isn't it? Twice now she's seen beneath it, now and the time she found the bond he'd mistakenly buried in Anders. Both times so afraid of losing her, both times so shaken. And both times he pretended after that he knew what he was doing, but it is a pretence, only that. _Oh, ma vhenan._ "Merrill, I'll make sure it won't."

He kisses her cheek, her jaw, the lobe of her ear. Merrill shivers, and she wishes ... but no.

"No," she says, just as firmly, just as sure. " _I'll_ make sure of it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please forgive me for fucking around with elvhen


	26. Chapter 26

_If you want to make it work,_ the demon says, hulking in the shadows beyond the bed, _you will need the Eluvian._

"Will I _really_?" Merrill finishes brushing her hair, and tucks it behind her ears to wash her face. "That's convenient, isn't it?"

The demon throbs gently, like a pulse of entropy and force woven delicately together. It isn't really there, it's all in her head. She's not even dreaming. It isn't real. 

_You don't believe me._

"You're not often very helpful, anymore." Merrill pats down her skin with a square of cotton and hangs the cloth up to dry. "You used to be helpful. Or I thought you were."

 _I'm weakening,_ the demon says, a low rumble like thunder in the distance. _It's harder now. It will grow harder still._

"And what do you want me to do about it?"

The demon rumbles again. _I mean only that you need to be quick, if you are to fix your Eluvian._

"I'm trying."

 _You've neglected it._ The demon sounds annoyed, which it very probably is, or perhaps all it does is mirror her own annoyance at the reminder. _You waste your time trying to help Vengeance. For all the good it will do you. Vengeance will kill you, if you set it free. Unless you take my help._

For a moment Merrill doesn't understand. "Vengeance?" And then she does. "You mean Justice?"

 _It_ was _Justice. It ceased to be Justice the moment it fed from your mage friend and grew fat on his anger._

"So this is Anders' fault?" She finds the accusation irritating, more so than the usual irritations of speaking with spirits. "And what did I feed you then, poor innocent thing, to corrupt you so?"

The demon laughs, echoing into the distance. _Your boldness. I find it delightful._

Merrill considers this. It is, perhaps, true. She could have given it the time she spent with Mahariel, and the time she spent after, when Mahariel was in the soil beneath a sapling watered with tears. Or the joy she'd had of Pol, when first they became friends. And the anger and anguish she felt when he rejected her friendship, for such a stupid reason! But no, instead ... perhaps she _had_ fed the demon her bravery, those moments when she risked everything and was rewarded for it.

Perhaps that was why she felt she had none left, now. No more boldness, only determination.

"How do I fix the Eluvian? The Arulin'Holm hasn't helped." And that was the last time she tried, honestly. She ought to return it, or make better use of it. How she misses Marethari, even to be scolded by her. "And how would the Eluvian help?"

_What will you give me, if I tell you?_

This, again. Merrill thinks, and she thinks, _No more boldness for you_. Instead she conjures a memory of Anders, lying on a low couch in Hawke's study, a patch of sun falling across his chest where Pawsha was curled into a fluffball. Anders was trying to read a book, and had to balance it awkwardly on his arm so as to see it without disturbing his burden, and Merrill remembers the rush of affection she had felt for them both, there, on that bright autumn morning.

She holds the memory still until it is crystal clear, and offers it up.

The demon takes it, quick as a snake, and the memory is ... gone? Hawke once asked what happens to them and she has wondered, but her curiosity for it never lasts.

 _Here's what you need to do,_ the demon tells her, squatting down in the shadows with a satisfied air about it.

It's remarkably simple. Elegant, almost. "And that will work?"

_If all goes to plan, why should it not?_

Boldness. And the boldness, perhaps, is Merrill's own. Pride becoming Audacity.

"All right," she says. "But, I want to sleep. Go away now."

Audacity does.

* * *

She sees him in the market and it feels like it's been an age since the last time. He's so pleased, the smile lighting up his face, and she feels her face do the same.

"Daisy," he drawls, one hand out as though they are either of them human. "Let me buy you lunch."

He takes her to a place in Lowtown, with a sheet of cloth for a canopy over tables constructed from planks and barrels. She sits on her crate, mindful of splinters, and lets Varric choose the food. He buys her a gourd stuffed with rabbit and herbs, and a cup of watered wine, and he breaks the bread. 

"You're my second best girl, Daisy," he says, with that smile, and it strikes her hard.

"I'm everyone's second best," she tells him, and immediately regrets it when she sees him frown. 

Worse, though, is when he nods, sopping up his soup. "You're still Marethari's First, right?"

It's true, but-- "I disappointed her. She never understood. But she will, when I fix the Eluvian. Oh, Varric, I should be working on it no-ow."

"Daisy. You don't have to." He looks at her so _completely_ , with all of his attention. "You can leave it behind. If it's not part of your story."

It only takes a moment. "Could you leave Bianca behind?" It's too cruel. He flinches only a little. "So you see?"

He nods. "And Hawke?"

"Why would I have to leave Hawke behind?"

He doesn't answer, just takes a drink from his tankard and eyes her over the rim. "How's life in the big house? I keep expecting Leandra to keel over in shock. Or maybe just good old-fashioned prudishness."

"She doesn't like me," Merrill admits. Everybody knows, anyway. "I always do things wrong, or hold things wrong, or say the wrong thing, or ... oh, one time she asked me to say Maker's Grace over dinner? And I thought it was silly, but ... and I said, 'For Maker's _sake_ , amen,' and Hawke laughed but Leandra's _face_ , and when I asked Isabela later she told me it was a _curse_ , which I didn't mean."

Varric grins. "Mild enough, but I can see why Hawke laughed."

"He never explains things," Merrill says, cross about it.

"He probably just wants to spare your feelings."

"But they aren't spared, and instead of _knowing_ I end up doing it all over again!" She sets down her cup a little too sharply, frowning into it. "I don't like not knowing things. I wish I knew everything."

"Your head would fill up and burst," Varric tells her, leaning back in his chair. "Be careful what you wish for. How many stories are based on _that_?"

"All right. If I'm to be careful what I wish." She thinks about it for a moment. "I wish I could fix the Eluvian and prove to _everybody_ that I was right to do it." And then use it to save Anders, and give so much back to the clan .... and Hawke would be proud of her, and then maybe, maybe, he'd shut his mother up once and for all. _There. That's what I want._

"Well, may you get it." Varric smiles. He looks sad, if only a little. "Is that all you want?"

"Right now." Because it's rather a lot. "Oh, er, and for everyone I love to be safe."

This seems to cheer him up, or at least he chuckles. "That's my girl."

But later, when Merrill thinks about it, it becomes clear that all she'll need _is_ the Eluvian, and everything else will inevitably come right. If only she can fix it. But of course she can. It's only a matter of time.

* * *

She works and _works_ , and it never comes good.

"Why won't you _work_?" she demands, so furiously frustrated that it comes out in a tight scream. "You useless, hopeless piece of--" She scowls at it, absolutely does not nearly throw the Arulin'Holm straight through it, puts the thing down before she can be too tempted to do so.

What is she doing _wrong_? Why doesn't it work? Audacity said--

But Audacity is a Fade spirit, a demon and not her friend.

"Help me," she says, and then, "Where are you? Will you _help_ me?"

But there is no answer.

 _Help me,_ and again, nothing, and Merrill does not know what to do.

Maybe ... maybe there is something in the way.

 _Audacity?_ She waits, but nothing comes.

Later, with a towel on the edge of the bed to catch the overflow, she cuts her hand and _tries_ , melting into the Fade and rummaging about to see if the demon is anywhere.

She, or he, or it, is nowhere. Merrill runs through fields of grain, through forests, and she can feel the warmth of Anders only a thinness away, but she keeps on looking and she finds nothing.

Nothing. What to do?

Audacity can help her, she's sure of it. Maybe she needs to go back to the source. 

Hawke says, "If you want," and Isabela is willing. Anders ... She does not ask Anders, but Varric says he will come, and that's enough, isn't it? She doesn't need Anders, doesn't want him, only ... if he was himself, rather than this half-Justice _Vengeance_ thing he has become then she would have asked him _first_ , and the realisation is too much to deal with, just now.

But when they go up Sundermount, things fall apart.

Marethari won't _listen_ to her. Not until they reach the cave where Audacity was bound does she realise why.

"Keeper." _Marethari_. She asks, but there is a terrible place inside that already knows the answer. "What have you done?"

Marethari does not even look repentant, and that, more than anything, turns Merrill's tongue to dust. She says the demon meant Merrill to set it free, meant her to be the first of its victims, meant to ... and then she says, so calmly, "I couldn't let that happen."

No. No, no, no...

Marethari is relentless. "I couldn't fight it in the Fade while it was trapped. And I couldn't banish it without making it stronger. So, I made myself its prison."

No. She knew, but ... _no_. And she knows what Marethari will say next, can hear it echoing 

"Kill me, and it dies as well."

" _No!_ " Merrill _can't_ , she _won't_ , this can't be real. "You can't ask that ... I won't do this!"

"You always knew your blood magic had a price, da'len." How can she sound so calm? "I have chosen to pay it for you."

Oh, how _angry_ that makes her. That even now Marethari would say such a thing, and mean it, as though Merrill is still a child and cannot do anything to stop this, cannot ...

But she can. "It doesn't have to be like this! There's another way!"

Marethari shakes her head, and Merrill feels the Keeper's magic swell, and she _knows_.

"NO!"

The knife comes to her hand without thought, fingers closing over the blade just as easily, the net of magic needed for this spinning out from her core to catch and snare, and then the Fade comes up to swallow her.

She has no time. _Hawke, please!_

But then she's under and she stumbles on the turf, the grass and soil beneath her cool and sweet and tainted, oh, so tainted. _No..._

There's no use in arguing, though, the truth is laid out in every branch, in the foulness beneath the surface of every leaf. Denying it wastes effort, and she has no _time_.

The forest that is Marethari is familiar and yet so alien. She feels her trespass keenly; this is not meant for her, never meant for her to see, never ever, but she is here and if Marethari meant her ill she would be afraid.

She is afraid anyway, because this is not like the other times, because if she gets this wrong then Marethari will be ...

 _Like Danarius, oh Creators, let me save her._ And yet, how much time could she lose? How long has Audacity had its hooks in her? It can't have been long, it can't be as well-buried as a demon carried for _years_.

She doesn't know, though, and her uncertainty makes her waver as she runs through the trees, searching for a way in.

Audacity. She knows its taste, should be able to find it, but the scent of demon is all around, low and pervasive, and how can she _find_ it, so well hidden in these trees?

She closes her eyes. _Mythal guide me._

And when she opens them it is right there.

The tree is old, so huge, with roots thick enough to reach the Deep Roads, canopy breaching the sky. Warped and grotesque, it curls up from the earth in a terrible tangle, unnatural and awful, and Merrill thinks first, _No,_ but then she remembers that she knows now how to deal with unwanted trees.

The axe comes as easily as a knife, light as a feather in her hand, and then she's up on the roots, finds a place to set her feet, and she swings.

The moment the axe bites into bark she realises where she has gone wrong.

Audacity was waiting for this. How could she forget how well the demon knows her? The axe sinks in and the shock of it reverberates up her arm, all the way to her heart, and the connection is _made_.

 _Thank-you, child._ And the demon rushes into her.

How it _hurts_. She thinks she can withstand it for only a moment before the torrent becomes a flood, and she can feel the surface of her self scoured by wrongness that latches into her to _tear her apart_.

 _No!_ She rails against it, desperate and furious and so frightened, drawing deep on her reserves to _fight_ it as she burns.

And then the woods close in, cool and fresh and comforting even in her distress.

It's so familiar. _Da'len._ Creators, she sounds so _sad_.

Whatever Marethari does is _old_ magic, older than anything Merrill knows, deep and wide and full of _love_ , the soil, the trees, the air turning inward to catch the demon and drag it back. It writhes, screaming obscene things in a language so ancient Merrill has no knowledge of it though the meaning courses through her like wildfire. 

And above it all, Marethari, so calm. _Da'len. You know what to do._

There she is, the manifestation of herself within her own self, drawing in the demon, everything, and she turns to look at Merrill with eyes that love her and a face no older than her own. This is _Marethari_ , young and beautiful, the dark silk of her braids tumbling glossy around her shoulders.

"Quick, da'len," she says, spreading her hands, leaving herself open.

Merrill has her knife.

She knows what to do.

It happens so quickly, between heartbeats, only a breath taking her from the burning abyss to an empty, echoing wasteland of grey that threatens to take her under and bury her forever.

And then it's over. She's tipped out onto the floor of a cave, on her knees above the body of the woman who loved her more than anyone in the world.

Everything after that comes through cotton and fog. Merrill stumbles through it, weeping silently as they leave, as they are confronted by the clan, as the clan turns on her, as the clan...

As the clan is slaughtered. Every last one of them.

"I didn't mean for any of this," Merrill sobs.

It is Isabela, not Hawke, who puts an arm around her, strong calloused fingers stroking her hair.

"You'll be all right, kitten," she says. 

But Merrill knows nothing will ever be right again.

* * *

Merrill shuts herself in her room and she cannot stop crying.

Tears, she knows, are the body's way of releasing tension, of unloading feelings too intense to keep inside. Like pus or bile or vomit, just an expulsion of excess, and yet they won't stop, keep coming, until she is dry and empty and hopeless.

The clan. The _clan_ , all of them gone, and _Marethari, Marethari, you fool, you, my teacher, my_ mother _, why, why, why did you have to be so brave and so very careless?_

She's so angry; magic comes up in her like bile, threatening to spill and destroy. She banks it, tries to discharge it harmlessly, but the pillow she takes up in her hands tears into shreds, silk and stuffing erupting into the air. The shock of losing control is frightening, and she tries desperately to pull the pieces back together.

Too late, always too late. She cannot put the egg back in its shell, cannot undo the crimes of careless selfishness, can never go back. Could never go back. And now there is nothing to go back to.

She sinks onto the bed, her face in her hands, the scent of blood clinging to her like a curse.

The scratch of claws against her door brings her back to herself, the heartfelt mew of a tiny bundle of fur who _loves_ her and knows how she hurts.

But Merrill refuses to get up, refuses to go to the door, lies down on the coverlet instead and closes her eyes and wishes Pawsha would go away. _Go find Anders,_ she thinks, willing it fiercely as though a cat could ever understand. _Go away._

It takes ages, and then the mewing stops, though she hears the clunk of the door as Pawsha settles against it. She has probably curled up, sad in herself, no way of knowing why she's been shut out, why Merrill can't bear to hold her. She shut Hawke out too, too deeply wounded to bear his sympathy.

She lies on the bed, and she knows she is fouling the covers with the blood on her armour but she cannot force herself to get up, to undress, to wash away the evidence of her crimes and failings. Oh, how she _wishes_. But wishing has never helped before and will not help now, and she weeps some more, face buried in a pillow.

 _Creators, forgive me. Mythal, I'm so sorry._ And-- _Falon'Din, guide my clan to their rest. Fen'Harel ... When you find me, be merciful._

She lies, like a dead thing herself, every inch of her flesh sorrowful and deserving of sorrow. If only she could _blame_ someone, if it were Marethari's fault or if Fen'Harel had brought this chaos upon the clan for their own traspasses, but it was not, is not, has never been anyone's fault but her own.

_I only wanted to help!_

There is an Andrastian saying: many paths to the Black City are paved with good intentions. There is a Dalish saying: a falling tree intends no harm. There is a Fereldan saying: regrets cannot help the dead.

She only wanted the best for them.

_How could I be so selfish? So blind? How could I not see--_

There's blood still running through her like lyrium, and she doesn't even mean to, but the bed fades into the chill of snow and Merrill curls into it because she can forget about the cold, just fold up like a seed and _be_.

She is numbed down to nothing, hardly anything at all, when he finds her.

"Merrill."

"I don't want to ta-alk to you," she says, thin and dry inside, like an old leaf. "No need to say 'I told you so'. I already know."

"I'm sorry." He kneels down beside her, neverminding the mush of snow. "I'm so sorry."

"You're not, not re-eally, oh, I don't even know ..."

" _Merrill!_ " She knows without looking that he's reached out, but he doesn't touch her, pulls his fingers back. "You came to my dream, you must know I--"

And he's right, this is _his_ , and when she looks up the sky is twisted into a tempest.

He follows her gaze, tilting his chin up. "Ah. Yes. You're doing that. In _my_ dream, which I didn't think possible."

"I ruin everything," she says, her voice low and thick and strange to hear. "I shouldn't have come. I didn't mean to."

"Of course you meant to." He melts the snow away, encourages the grass to grow up warm beneath them both. The sky stays bruised and bloody, the treetops thrashing in the maelstrom, but down here it is still, with the scent of spring coming up from the turf. Then--

Windflowers. Little spearheads that unfurl gold and close up only to burst open again into fluffy white heads begging to be blown apart. _He_ is doing this, and she knows he is doing it for her. Because she likes them. Because he remembered.

She looks at him. His eyes are tired and sorry, and his mouth ... she has never seen him so concerned. Not with her. Not when looking at _her_.

"Anders, I can't," she says, but then he offers his hand and she clutches it, though her palms are bloody, black with it, rank and guilty.

He hauls her in, braces her against his chest, his cheek pressed to her temple. "I'm so, so sorry," he says again, the words melting into her all the way to her bones. "Merrill."

"You don't understand what I've _done_ ," she protests. "I _loved_ her! I loved all of them!" _I was meant to be their Keeper, I was meant to keep them safe!_

"I know," he says into her hair, still holding her so tightly. "Do you think I don't?" His voice drops, cracking as it goes. "The mercy of a blade for the ones we love."

They are no longer in a patch of grass in the snow, instead there is stone and carpet beneath her knees, and a human, older than Anders, grey and bearded and lying in a pool of blood on the floor.

She doesn't have to know 'what' to understand 'why', not when it is thick in the air around them, Anders' guilt and regret a smothering fog

It only makes everything worse. She flees from it, dragging him with her. The Fade flickers around them in a whirlwind -- snow, grass, forest, mountainside, lakeshore, a burnt house in the woods, the wreckage of aravels -- it spins dizzyingly and she cannot stop.

"The ones we love? Then will it be Hawke, next?" She jerks away from him but he won't let her go. "Will it be you? _Who else_ will I _hurt_?"

Wide, wild human eyes, staring at her. "Merrill, you don't love _me_."

" _How would you know?_ "

She sees it lodge in him, sees him reel from it, sees the moment in which he chooses.

When he kisses her everything stops, dissolving into nothing beside the warmth of his mouth, his hands on her shoulders, the sharp tang of his magic melting into her own. She tangles into him, desperate for contact and, oh, it's not like kissing Hawke, or even poor Mahariel -- he's so bright it feels like kissing the sun. The magic catches, shaking the world like a struck gong, and then snaps into place, a glittering golden chain heavy between them.

She gasps and opens her eyes. It takes her a moment to realise she is on her back, staring up at the ceiling of her room, stiff and cold in her armour.

 _Anders._

He's woken, somewhere in the house. Downstairs it feels like, probably on the study couch by the fire with a blanket draped over him by Hawke or Bodahn or Sandal. He's confused but not angry, which is how she knows -- the connection between them is fine, almost invisible, like spidersilk glinting in the light because it isn't really there, strung out in the Fade but not real, not in waking, and Vengeance _doesn't know_.

_Oh, Anders, what have I done?_


	27. Chapter 27

"Butcher!" Tristram bellows it across the yard one bright bastard of a morning, and Carver _does not cringe_. "Word with you!"

Carver goes, because Tristram is his Lieutenant and because maybe if he goes quickly Tristram won't shout anything more embarrassing. A nickname is bad enough, and Tristram has so much more ammunition and isn't even a little afraid of using it. "Ser?"

Tristram walks him to the edge of the yard, and then, surprisingly, gestures for Carver to follow him down a walkway and into a room fitted out like an office. Which it _is_ , and Carver wonders how he could not know Tristram had an _office_.

The Knight Lieutenant takes a seat, gestures for Carver to sit across from him, so Carver sits.

"Got a job for you, boy-oh. Apostate in the alienage, or so they say. I want you to investigate it for me."

Carver sits up straight, and yeah, this is what he's been missing. Real missions with real consequences. "Sure thing, ser."

"Now, you gotta be _careful_ , Hawke," Tristram insists, making a diamond of his fingers and holding it up under his chin. "Alienage in Starkhaven ain't like the alienage in Kirkwall. You can't just barge in there and make 'em give their mage up. Anyway, the headswoman was the one to report it to us, so." He cocks his head, his smile thin and sharp. "You hafta be _nice_ when you go down. Farelan -- she's in charge -- ask her sodding permission to come into her place. You understand?"

Carver ... thinks he gets it. "So. Treat them like people, ser?" And maybe it's a little raw, the way he says it, but he never imagined Tristram would glare at him this way for saying so.

" _Just_ like people. Or like ... you remember walking into a Coterie place, back home?"

Home means Kirkwall, Carver thinks, and he nods. "Yes, ser."

"So, you know. It's her place, aye? And you'll show her some _respect_ , y'hear?"

Carver nods. "Yes, ser."

Tristram eyes him balefully for a moment before nodding back at him. "Your lot have the most recent experience with mages out of them all, so ... I figure you'll be a'right. You gonna be a'right?" Tristram looks uncomfortable, but he asks anyway. "Given the givens."

Carver thinks about it. He means because of what happened to Paxley, that much is obvious, but Carver _won't_ let that stop him. "Yes, ser. I'll do my duty."

"Grand." He leans over the desk to smack Carver on the shoulder. "Good hunting, boy-oh. Get to it."

* * *

The older men seem annoyed with the assignment, but Lachlan practically vibrates out of his skin when Carver briefs them. This, of course, is what he's been training for, and Carver can't really begrudge him his eagerness to be finally doing it. Still, he pulls the kid aside when the others are gearing up, for a Talk.

"I need you to be careful," he says. Lachlan doesn't quite roll his eyes but it's a close call. "I'm serious, Ser Lachlan. This is how Templars get killed by apostates. Don't make me report your stupid death to your father."

They've come a long way in the last few weeks. Carver can remember a time when Lachlan would have immediately blown up at the mention of his father. Now, though, he just smirks. "Well, ser. Wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

Better than nothing. "See that you don't."

The squad still needs work, settling against one another like dogs. Uldred's all right, dour as fuck but obedient, now he's finished shirking. Sometimes he pauses before doing things Carver's ordered him to, but sometimes Carver gets the feeling he's just sort of chewing on it, not actually going to refuse. Geary follows Uldred's lead whenever he can, though it's clear he thinks the older knight is daft and set in his ways. It's a pity Geary dislikes Carver so much, honestly. He's kind of like Hugh, a sort of human weathervane. If Geary says it, everyone else is thinking it and either too polite or too wary to admit it. Plus, he's a dry kind of funny, sometimes. And a dick, most other times.

Harrison, though. Uldred tolerates him, and Uldred's the only one Harrison will back down from. Geary's always getting in Harrison's face about something, because Harrison digs at him and Geary doesn't know how to let a thing go. But he won't admit it to Carver, just says it's fine, pretends nothing happened.

And then there's Lachlan, who turns away from Harrison, the whole of his body curving away from him every time he comes near. Carver doesn't know what Harrison says to him to get the blood up in his face, but he doesn't like it one bit. Still, he doesn't quite know what to do about it.

When they go down to the alienage there are human guards at the gate in the armour of the city. They aren't there to monitor the elves, though; Carver sees several elves pass through the gates without challenge or much notice, but the senior guardsman stops Carver before he can go in. "Templar, what's your business in the alienage?"

"I'm here to see the headswoman. Farelan?"

The guard nods. "And you are, serrah?"

"Ser Carver, Corporal of the Order of Knights Templar," and he hesitates only a moment, "in Starkhaven." That still sits sour in his mouth, but it seems to do the trick. The senior guardsman sends one of his juniors with a message for the headswoman; she comes back with an invitation for Carver and his men, so he follows her in.

He's struck by how clean it is, how green. The great tree at the centre of the courtyard is well maintained, decorated with flags and candles and bright bits of folded paper. There are children underfoot everywhere but they seem clean and reasonably clothed, for the most part. Happy. Healthy. He imagines Merrill here and thinks that she would, at least, have been a little happier.

 _And Fenris?_ Well, Orana might have liked it.

He doesn't think about that, thinks instead about the fact that they are being stared at from all sides, as though templars do not often come here. No-one seems particularly frightened, however, just curious. _Starkhaven's so weird,_ he thinks, and puts it out of his mind.

The headswoman is younger than he'd expected; she's about his mother's age, he thinks, though maybe not given how elves age. Most of her hair is silver, some of it still a bright copper colour that goes with the pale blue-green of her eyes and the darker blue-green of her dress. She meets with them in what appears to be the kitchen of her house, and doesn't invite them to sit.

"It's Jonley's girl," she says matter-of-factly. "Yora. She's seven, or thereabouts. Another child saw her 'make snow'." She purses her lips. "I understand there was a scuffle of some sort, over some slight, and then this happened. If it's true ... well. The child needs to go to the Circle."

Carver nods, though he's thinking this through. Even if it is true, it might be the wrong child accused. "We'll look into it. With your permission, Headswoman," he adds, remembering what Tristram said.

She seems satisfied with this, and then she takes them three floors up the rookery to an apartment door and leaves them there. It's dark and close and narrow, and Carver doesn't like it one bit. There's no room for a two-hander in here, and while the lower floors were stone and mortar, up this high everything's wood. 

He weighs up the chances of this going south against the risks if it does, and doesn't like the result. 

"All right," he mutters, beckoning the others in close. "We go in, ask a couple of questions, don't start anything. If the kid's there we say hello and we leave, and even if she's not we ask this Jonley to bring her in to be tested."

Harrison's eyes narrow, but Uldred nods. "If they run, ser?"

"Then we'll be ready for them. But catching an apostate in this place is a shit-shower waiting to happen."

"Scared of the dark, ser?" Harrison asks, clipped and level, and the insubordination in it sets Carver's teeth on edge.

"Not when I've good men at my back," he snaps. Harrison's mouth curls, halfway to a smirk, but that's all he does.

Uldred nods. "Ser," he says, solid. Geary looks bored, or impatient maybe, but clearly not in the least concerned about how this is going to go down.

Carver takes a breath, glancing at Lachlan. The kid's drawn in on himself, compact and intent, watching Carver like a, well, like a hawk. Good. Hopefully this won't go too badly, and Lachlan can bitch about the disappointment all the way home.

"All right. Let's do this."

He knocks on the door. After a moment it's opened by an elf in dark green trousers and a tunic with beautiful embroidery around the collar. He's very blond and his eyes are green and he's _handsome_ , and Carver hates the way his expression immediately shatters but it is very telling.

"Serrah Jonley?"

Jonley nods, his eyes like dinnerplates. He has otherwise gone completely still, hands pressed flat against his belly. He knows, and Carver wonders what else he knows.

"I'm Knight Corporal Carver," he says. "I'd like to come in."

Jonley hesitates, but then he steps back, ducking around a table with three chairs set to it. Carver follows him in, Harrison and Geary on his heels, Lachlan and Uldred taking up position inside the doorway. Without being asked, Uldred closes the door.

Jonley's eyes flick over each of them in turn but settle on Carver. He says nothing, however, simply waits. There is something familiar in it. Carver can almost place it. Something in the way he stands, so still, tense but waiting.

"I expect you have some idea why we're here, serrah?"

Jonley gives him a carefully blank look. "No, ser knight." Then he blinks. "Can I offer you some tea?"

 _So you can poison me?_ "No, thank-you." He glances around the room, taking in the rough furniture, the clean tablecloth bordered with delicately stitched trilliums, the three chairs, the pot hanging over a cold hearth, the herb packets and twine on a work-bench, the scent of hot wax hanging in the air. "Is your wife a seamstress, serrah?"

The spasm in his cheek is painful to watch. Maker's mercy, he's all tells. Isabela would clean him out in a heartbeat. "I'm not married."

"But you don't live here alone," Carver insists.

"My friend is a tailor's assistant. He shares with me. It's easier, and--" but he breaks off, looking as if he already wishes he'd said nothing at all.

"And you make candles?" Because someone does.

He nods, mouth twitching, but says nothing.

Carver clears his throat, only too aware that he's not good at this part. "I'll be blunt, serrah. One of your neighbours has accused your daughter, Yora, of doing magic." 

Jonley's eyes go even wider with shock and Carver thinks, _Wait, he's not that good a liar,_ but then the hunch of Jonley's shoulders swims into focus. Carver remembers where he's seen that before. _Andraste at the_ stake _, this is bad._

He holds up a hand, tries to copy Tristram's solid certainty. "No need to worry, serrah. Usually it's just bad neighbours and bad gossip. But I have to ask you some questions. I'd appreciate it if you're honest with me."

Jonley has gone almost grey, and his voice when he chokes it out is thin as mist. "Of course, ser knight."

"First of all, have you ever suspected your daughter of magic? Ever seen anything weird, anything that didn't make sense at the time?"

"No," he says, and it's probably a lie, but right now everything about him screams 'lie' and Carver's just going through the motions.

"If you're sure." Jonley nods. "All right, then. Magic, as it happens, runs in families. Has anyone in your family, or Yora's mother's family, ever been taken to the Circle?"

Jonley hesitates. "No," he says slowly, eyes flickering to one side. Also a lie, but Carver already knew it would be. "But Wanna and I were both Chantry orphans. We had no family, that we knew of."

Maker, he's so obvious it hurts. But Carver nods. "And where's your daughter now?"

"I'm not sure," and he may be telling the truth but Carver can't say. "She's hard to keep track of, these days."

"Right," Carver says, and he's considering how to word his own lie when the door slams open.

A young elven man with wild dark curls and an Antivan face calls out, "Jon! I heard--" but then he sees them and his voice gives out, mouth slack with shock.

Jonley raises his hands. "Madder! Don't!"

He probably doesn't mean to do it, it's just panic. With lyrium in his blood Carver can't miss the magic bubbling up in him, not going anywhere yet, just the potential for it. But Carver is a Templar, and he throws the Smite on instinct.

Perhaps it's instinct that makes Harrison draw his sword. Fear, maybe. Whatever it is, the blade is buried in Jonley's chest before Carver can even think to stop him.

" _No!_ "

There's another Smite at Carver's back; he glances back long enough to see that Lachlan has the newcomer up against a wall and is smothering any whiff of magic out of him.

He turns ahead. Jonley's dead. Harrison looks defiant, and Carver can't fucking take this.

" _What did I say?_ " He's yelling, worse, roaring at Harrison because _Jonley is dead_ and it didn't have to be like this. "What were my _fucking_ orders, Harrison?"

"He was a skirt, and you know it," Harrison says, flat and eerily calm. He wipes his sword clean on the tablecloth and sheathes it. "Might have saved your life, Knight Corporal. Think about that."

"He wasn't even casting," Carver snaps back at him. "He might not have done anything and you, you _slaughtered_ him. For what? Being scared of Templars? He was a fucking Circle mage!" Harrison's expression tightens, eyes narrowing, and Carver realises he hadn't known. Maker's breath. "Oh, yeah," Carver spits, "he was. He thought we were here for him. Or him," and he jerks his chin at the elf weeping against the wall. Lachlan's holding him up now, startled and confused because the elf is loose in his arms, sobbing like his heart's broken and ... Carver takes a deep breath. Maybe it is broken. 

Harrison follows his gaze and his expression twists with disgust.

Carver hates him so much. "Yeah, he knew what we could do to him. And he knew how to stay small and still and obedient. He was gunna do whatever we wanted so we'd go away. And you. Fucking. Killed him. You insubordinate piece of _shit_!"

It's Harrison's smirk that does it. Carver just _snaps_ , lunges for him, and the only thing that stops him from getting his gauntlets around Harrison's throat and squeezing until he feels bone is Uldred's hand in the middle of his breastplate. 

He looks so stern. "Ser," he says, solid and serious. "If I may. You'll regret it."

Harrison looks shocked for all of a heartbeat, and then his slimy fucking face turns cruel. "Yeah, ser. Don't throw your career away on some cock-sucking apostate knife-ear. Or is that it?" He steps in, eyes bright and alien. "You wanted to keep him? You like your mages with experience?"

It takes a moment to process because it's an insult but Carver can't fit himself into it. When he does it's like his anger has frozen somewhere in his chest, still there but no longer burning him alive. "You think I fuck mages?"

Harrison eyes him up, mouth widening like a toad's. "Nah. I reckon you like it when they fuck you, ser." Carver can't believe he's hearing this, can't believe a knight under his command would dare to say this. In front of the others. Publically. And part of him wants to beat Harrison into the ground but the rest of him is just ... shocked. "Or, maybe not mages. Maybe just Cullen, eh? How much cock did you have to suck to get your knighthood, Ferelden? How much for your promotion? How many times you let Tristram bend you over for him to bring you home with him?"

Uldred looks like he's swallowed his tongue. "Shut the _fuck up_ , Harrison!"

Carver stares at him, hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up out of his throat. _Holy shit!_ He can just imagine Tristram's face if he were here. Tristram would lay the guy out on the floor, maybe put him in the ground.

Wait. No. Tristram wouldn't. Tristram would think of something better.

"Ser Uldred, relieve Harrison of his arms. And his lyrium." Uldred, thankfully, doesn't hesitate, just does exactly as he's told. "Ser Geary, take them." 

Geary steps up to accept the sheathed sword and the shield, two blue phials, and Harrison's belt-knife that Carver hadn't asked for but concedes is a good idea. Harrison stares at him, that pale glare fixed on Carver like he means to burn him out of existence with it. Carver stares right back, still so angry he could beat his face to pulp but somehow beyond it. 

"Ser Uldred, escort Harrison to the Chantry and see him confined. Report to Knight Lieutenant Tristram that I am relieving Harrison of duty," what are the damn words? "pending a disciplinary meeting. If he wants details, go ahead and tell him."

Uldred nods, solid as a rock. "Yes, ser." His eyes slide down to where Jonley is crumpled on the floorboards and up again. "See you back home, ser."

Carver turns away from them as they leave, toward Jonley. _You didn't deserve that, you poor bastard._ He looks small on the floor, and Carver feels so ... responsible. He takes the ruined tablecloth, drapes it over the body, and turns back.

Lachlan's eyes are wide with shock and maybe the mortification of an elf still weeping on his breastplate, but he's done a good job. Carver nods to him, and pulls out a chair. "Sit him down."

Lachlan's still smothering him, but Lachlan's new to it so Carver takes over, opening up a phial of lyrium to sip if he needs it. He won't, but it's comforting, all the same.

The elf slumps in the chair, face turned away from the sad mound on the floor.

Carver feels bad for him, but what is he supposed to do? "Here," and he offers up his handkerchief. After a moment the elf takes it, wipes his face. "Madden, was it?"

He shakes his head. "Madder," he manages, his voice thick with tears.

"Madder. I'm sorry about your friend."

Madder looks up. Even bloodshot his eyes are huge and luminous, his lashes long, dark. He has a generous mouth that, Carver suspects, transforms his face when he smiles. He doesn't expect he's ever going to see that, though. "It won't bring him back," Madder says, and then he stiffens, defiance clear in the set of his jaw. "What are you going to do to me?"

"You're an apostate," Carver says. Madder winces. _Yeah, you are. Two apostates. Three,_ he corrects himself, remembering the little girl they still have to find. Fuck, a whole family of them. It's horribly familiar. "We're going to find Yora, and I'm going to take you both to the Chantry. Then you'll be sent to a Circle. Have you been in a Circle before?"

He shakes his head. "No."

So he doesn't know what to expect. Carver can't tell if that's better or worse. At least Jonley knew how to protect himself, and just thinking that makes Carver feel sick to his stomach. 

He takes a deep breath. "I'll do what I can to get you sent to Cumberland." Not the Gallows. "I can't promise much."

"What about Yora?"

Carver chews his lip. He knows what's going to happen to her, what will probably happen to both of them. But he feels so guilty. "I'll try and get you both sent together, but ... If you were her father they'd separate you in a heartbeat. If you're not, though," and the way Madder's face just crumples Carver thinks it really doesn't matter who actually tumbled Yora's mother, Madder might as well be her bloody father. "Don't let on. If you can get her to pretend you don't mean anything special to her, then maybe you'll get to see her." And maybe not, but it's the best he can do.

Madder nods, wiping his face. "All right. Thank-you."

It's not a thank-you he deserves. "You can take one personal item. They might let you keep it, if you're good. Pick something out for the girl, too." He'll not bring her up here, not with that body on the floor.

Carver's half expecting it when Madder goes over to pull back the tablecloth. His work, Carver's sure, his hands that stitched those trilliums, and the love-labour on Jonley's tunic. He makes himself watch Madder kneel to touch Jonley's face, bow down to kiss his mouth and whisper something. Then Madder unties a cord from Jonley's throat, holds up a ring with a dull stone.

"It's only quartz," he says, weak as water. "Not worth anything. Will it be stolen from her, in the Circle?"

It's for the girl, then. Carver shakes his head. "I don't think so." He doesn't know, though.

Madder nods, covers Jonley's face with shaking hands, and stands up. "I'm done. I don't need anything."

Except his lover, alive. Carver doesn't argue, lets Geary and Lachlan escort the elf out, but he hesitates in the doorway, looking back. "I'll see he's interred in the city catacombs," he says, knowing it's not enough but unable to offer anything else.

Madder shakes his head. "Scatter his ashes under the _vhenadahl_ ," he says, and the crack in his voice makes Carver want to bleed for him. "He would have liked that."


	28. Chapter 28

The rest of the day isn't much better. 

Headswoman Farelan is quietly furious at first, but when Madder confirms that Jonley was a mage she is simply disgusted -- with _Madder_ , which makes Carver himself quietly furious. Carver gives apology and arranges for a Chantry sister to come deal with the body, as no-one in the alienage wants to touch it. The whole exchange is exhausting, and leaves him wrecked.

Yora cries all the way to the Chantry compound. From what he can make out, with her face buried in Madder's shoulder, she blames herself. Carver can tell Madder blames himself. And Carver blames _him_ self, but Maker's truth this is _Harrison's_ fucking fault. Carver resolves to get some satisfaction from him, if only to break the back of his anger over all this. _Plus Harrison deserves it, the shit-eating ballsack._

Lachlan looks ill but keeps it together, dogging Carver's heels like a silent and unexpectedly obedient shadow. Geary looks fine but he's also quiet and also unexpectedly obedient, lugging Harrison's gear back to the compound without a word of complaint. While the mages are handed over for processing, Geary excuses himself to deliver the gear to the quartermaster, and returns almost at once, to Carver's surprise. The two of them stick with him on the way to Tristram's office, and don't seem to want to leave once they get there.

Tristram kicks them out all the same, stern and serious, but once they're gone he drops his head into his hands, sighing heavily. "Well, that was a bag of bollocks."

"You sent me after one apostate, ser," Carver says. He tries not to sound defensive, but really. "There were _three_. One dead apostate and no dead Templars is better than average."

Tristram looks at him. "We both know you don't mean that, Hawke. Even if it's true." He sits back in his chair, arms folded over his breastplate, looking grim about it all. "Uldred tells me you had good reason to call Harrison an insubordinate piece of shit." He shrugs. "Didn't wanna go into specifics, though, and I didn't push. But my curiosity is climbing the curtains. So sit your arse down and give me your report."

Where to start? "The place was a deathtrap. Didn't like our chances if it went up in smoke. I told them all not to start anything. I wanted to go in, come out, wait for the father to get the girl and run, and catch them in the open."

"Only he didn't run."

"No." Carver lets out a breath. "He was obviously a Circle runaway. He just ... he had the look. But I wanted out of that box. So, I was just about to finish and go when the poor bastard's lover showed up and sprung the trap. Jonley -- the Circle mage -- he," and Carver's not sure how to put it. "You know when they swell? Like, their magic comes up, but they're not using it yet. How it happens when they're scared or, you know, that sort of thing. Well, that happened. So I chucked a Smite at him, and Harrison chucked a sword."

Tristram nods. He's obviously heard this much from Uldred. "And then what happened?"

"I chewed him out. I was--" _just so angry._ "He didn't care. He didn't give a crap about my orders when I gave them, and he disobeyed them, and he didn't even care. Ser. If that's not an insubordinate piece of shit then I don't know what is."

"Naw, he's a cockrot, that's for sure." Tristram eyes him sidelong, mouth twitching. "That's not all of it, though. Come on, boy-oh, what happened next?"

Yeah, he's been dreading this bit. "Well, you should know, ser, that according to Harrison the reason I was sent down to Starkhaven was so you could keep bending me over your desk."

For a moment, nothing, and then Tristram bursts out laughing. " _You?_ With your pasty arse? Maker's _cock_ , Butcher, you're not last on the list of Knights Corporal I'd tumble in a pinch but you're nowhere near the top of it."

Not the reaction Carver had been expecting. "Just my arse you've got a problem with, ser? Cos Harrison also said I only got my knighthood from sucking off Knight Captain Cullen. If that's more to your liking."

Tristram snorts, deeply amused. "Oh, aye? You might have a pretty mouth but it's still not pretty enough for me to stick my dick in it."

His amusement is contagious. Carver feels himself smile. "Plus, your wife would gut me like a fish."

"My wife," Tristram says drily, "would want to _watch_." He raps his knuckles on the table before stabbing a finger at Carver decisively. "Cullen, though." He shakes his finger at Carver. "There's always been rumours around the Gallows about you and _Cullen_."

Carver goes still. "They're just rumours, ser."

"You used to have dinner with him. Breakfast. Sometimes dinner and _then_ breakfast."

"Nothing inappropriate ever happened, ser," Carver says, suddenly angry about this. "The Knight Captain would never."

"Oh, you forget I've known him longer than you have." Tristram leans back in his chair. "The man who ordered me to take care of you in Starkhaven wasn't a man who would 'never'."

Carver can't hear this. He just _can't_ , not right now, not today. And he can't help it when he says, "Yeah, well. All he ever had to do was ask and he never did." He regrets it at once but it's been said, can't be taken back.

Tristram makes a face. "You're one of his junior officers, Hawke. What's a man to do? And he can't promote you, not young as you are. Smacks of favouritism, that does. But," and he grins, "if _I_ promote you, here, then it can't be, can it? And a Knight Lieutenant's practically a Knight Captain."

Carver remembers a conversation, years ago, when Cullen said something about the gap between a knight and his corporal being not so great. _And he said something about me being Lieutenant, one day._

Is this what he meant?

It doesn't matter. "You can't promote me to Lieutenant, ser," Carver argues, a distraction but maybe for himself rather than Tristram. " _You're_ a Lieutenant."

"Do you really think Bridie's gonna be Knight Captain here forever?" Tristram grimaces, shaking his head. "That wet paper bag? Fuck, no. That office is _mine_." He makes a decisive gesture, as if it's already done. "Cullen's got his plans, I've got _my_ plans. Course, I fucked up his plans when I.... Oh, but you don't even know," he says, watching Carver's face. "He hasna told you yet?"

Carver has no idea what he's talking about. "Hasn't told me what?"

Tristram blows out his breath, irritated. "That fucken man never learns." He seems to consider it, and then he shakes his head. "I don't believe in treating my men like chess pieces. Now, if I give you an order you'll do it without question because I told you to, aye? But if I'm plotting and it affects you I'm not going to leave you in the dark." He sighs. "And since Cullen's plotting affects _me_ , I'll not leave you in the dark about that either."

It sounds ominous. Carver's not sure he wants to know, actually, but Tristram doesn't seem to care.

"The idiot didn't tell me until after I'd already given Xavia my word I'd settle in Starkhaven. But I was supposed to be his Captain. When he's Commander."

Carver is suddenly very, very sure he doesn't want to know this, and it must show in his face because Tristram makes a placating gesture.

"I'm not talking about mutiny, Hawke, settle your tits. But Meredith isn't ... right. And I know you don't think she is, and I know you don't agree with what she's doing in the Gallows. Because you can't bloody keep that to yourself -- stealthy as a sack of piglets, you are." He doesn't sound annoyed about that, just factual, and Carver can't argue. "And if you keep on the way you're going, you won't see that promotion. You'll be lucky if you don't end up in one of the tunnels under the Gallows with an Antivan smile." He makes a slow and horribly explicit gesture, drawing his thumb across his throat. "So. Here you are, safe with me, until you're big enough and ugly enough that they can't fuck with you. Now, the _plan_ was that once Cullen pulled off his perfectly legal, perfectly by-the-book coup -- with support from Orsino and Elthina and Or-bloody-lais -- I was supposed to be his Captain. And you were supposed to be first of his Lieutenants. But I fucked that up the moment I saw my girl slit a slaver from knob to bob. And now, _you're_ going to be his Captain."

Carver ... okay. "I ... respectfully?" They both know what 'respectfully' means. "That's bullshit, ser, I'm not ... that can't be right."

"And why's that, Ser Carver?" Tristram looks thoughtful, eyeing Carver over as if thinking about buying him. "You're tall enough, strong enough. You might not be pretty but you're a good-looking lad. Kirkwaller by blood, even if you weren't born there. You've grand-uncles-and-aunts who served the Order. Oh, did you not know that? You wouldn't have been the first Ser Amell of Kirkwall, if you'd chosen that name. Nor the first Knight Corporal Amell, or Knight Lieutenant Amell. And if that's not enough," he adds dryly, knowing full well how none of that actually matters, "you're a good man and a good Templar. You care about mages. You care about your men -- even when your men are women. Cullen thinks you can do it." He smiles. "I think you can do it. Maker's balls, if my plans go better than expected, you could be _my_ Captain."

There's nothing he can think of to say. Fuck. It sounds ... Maker _fuck_.

 _Is this really happening? You're not fucking with me?_ he thinks, but he doesn't know who he's thinking it _at_ so ... yeah. This is real. This is everything he's ever wanted.

"Ser," he says, but that's it. He tries again. "I hope I can prove you right."

"I've no use for your hope, Butcher," Tristram chides. "You can do better than that."

Carver nods. "I'll do everything I can to deserve your faith in me, ser."

Tristram smiles. "Better. Now. The part where I chew you out. On your feet, boy-oh." He stands up, gesturing for Carver to do the same, and then he leans his hands on the desk as his expression flattens out into something entirely serious. "Harrison wasn't insubordinate just because he's a cocky shit, but because he has no respect for you as his Knight Corporal. And that's your fault. No, don't you give me that fucken look," Tristram growls and Carver smooths his expression, standing up straighter, which has never helped before. "He doesn't respect you. Because you never punish any of them. They're not your friends, not like Kirkwall where you built your squad out of people who liked you or never knew you as a recruit. These men don't have to like you. They have to obey your orders. They have to trust that you know what you're doing. And they won't if they think they can get one over you. So. You need to show them you're in charge. Here's how it's gunna play out." He holds up a fist, one finger extended. "First, you're choosing a second. Then," with two fingers, in a rude gesture, "I'll assign you the rest of your squad. Third, I want to see penances, warnings, punishments. I want three by the end of the month, five by the end of the next. Don't have to be official. Make 'em run laps, I don't care. But I do not want to hear that Lachlan MacCallion starts a fight with an officer in _public_ and walks away without stripes or twenty-eight days in a fucking cell. Do I make myself clear, Knight Corporal?"

Shit. "Yes, ser. Clear as day."

"Good. And you know what you have to do about Harrison. I'll expect your decision on that by breakfast. Oh," and he fixes Carver with a firm but less awful look. "You did all right today. All things considered. Better next time. Dismissed."

As soon as he's out of there, Carver braces his palms against the wall and tries to breathe. Holy fucking _shit_.

"Ser?" Oh, _Shit, shit shit_ , he'd forgotten about those two.

Lachlan looks like he's about to choke but Geary is more curious than anything. "Everything all right, ser?"

Those sers are coming easy now, so that's good. Carver looks at them for a long moment. They are, he thinks, neither of them really candidates for an adjutant. His second is going to have to lead the other half of the squad. Lachlan's too young, too hot-headed, too inexperienced. Geary ... Geary needs to be under his eye for a while before he's really going to trust the bloke. Still, they're all right. Getting better.

"I'm fine," Carver tells them. "Good job today. Rack your gear, and take the afternoon off."

"But _ser_!" Lachlan protests.

Geary mutters, "Just _shut up_ ," at him but Lachlan ignores it.

"Are you in trouble? What about _Harrison_?"

"Don't worry about any of that," Carver says flatly, and Lachlan opens his mouth to keep nagging and Carver just can't anymore. " _Do_ I have to give you a penance, Ser Lachlan?" He tries to radiate as much of Tristram's 'just give me an excuse to fuck you up' bravado as he can and maybe it works because Lachlan, miraculously, shuts up. "No? Good. Then go on, rest up. I'll see you in the morning."

Lachlan hesitates, but he screws his face up into a scowl and storms away. Geary eyes him warily, then takes one glance at Carver and cuts a quick salute. "Ser," he mutters, and then he's off too.

Carver takes a deep breath, lets it go, and goes looking for Uldred.

He finds him in the mess, chewing some tough bread with his ale ration. When he sees Carver he nods, drains his cup, and stands up to follow Carver out. Carver's not really sure where to take him for this so he heads down to the barracks, which are largely deserted, and waves Uldred into the space set aside for the Knights Corporal. He doesn't invite Uldred to sit, just stands there, watching Uldred set his feet, the man's hands going behind his back and his chest coming up as though he thinks ... does he think Carver's angry with him?

"Ser Uldred," he says, but then he falters, unsure how to do any of this.

"Ser," Uldred says, solid and stoic, and if not old enough to be Carver's father then very close to it.

The whole thing makes Carver feel ridiculous, but this is the way things are and how they're going to be, and if he expects Uldred to do this for him then ... then he has to look just as bloody solid as Uldred does. "Um." Not a great start. "Thank-you, for today."

Uldred nods. He knows what Carver's getting at, that much is clear, and for that Carver's thankful. "Didn't think you'd like yourself after, if you did to Harrison what you was planning."

"Maybe not." Carver can't argue with that. Uldred's _right_. "I need that, I think. Someone who'll stop me, if I go too far."

"Ser."

"So I want you to be my adjutant," Carver says, not sure how Uldred's going to respond. He seems to chew it over, nods a little, eyes gone down and to the side. Carver ... doesn't know what that means. "You got anything to say about it?"

"If I may speak freely," Uldred says, slow and solid. "Ser?"

Well, what's Carver going to say? No? "Go on."

Uldred takes a breath, holds it, and then lets it go beneath his whiskers. "I know what you think of me, ser."

Huh. "I think you're a solid knight who knows his duty, Ser Uldred."

Uldred nods, so slow, so deliberate. "I do my best, ser." He eyes Carver then, contemplative. "You know why I was sent down, ser." It's not a question, so Carver doesn't answer it. "There was ... that business."

The time Carver was, in effect, poisoned with lyrium. A prank, or something worse. Cullen must have thought it more, to do as he did. Carver doesn't think much about it now -- it was so long ago and it didn't work and, sure, Geary and Harrison and Uldred were sent down for it, but all the same. "I don't care about that."

It makes Uldred blink, more reaction than Carver has really been able to get out of him before. "Then I don't know if you're brave or stupid, ser."

"Maybe both," Carver admits, not sure what's happening because ... well, Uldred _had_ been sent down. Surely Cullen had been right about that, right to do it. He wasn't ever _wrong_. Still. "I haven't seen anything from you lately to make me think you hate me. Do you?"

Uldred breathes in, not meeting Carver's eye. "I don't _hate_ you, ser."

But he thinks _something_ , that much is obvious. "What, then?"

"You're Fereldan, ser," Uldred says, his eyes coming up hard as steel.

It makes no sense. "You're Fereldan too."

"I heard you was a deserter," Uldred says, and he says it so plainly it goes through clean. "Is that true?"

Carver can't lie. "From Ostagar. From _darkspawn_."

"I fought at Denerim," Uldred says. "For Anora. Against darkspawn."

It's so unfair. "You had Grey Wardens."

"We had three," Uldred says, flat as a griddlecake.

And Carver cannot argue against it; there were wardens at Ostagar, wardens _died_ at Ostagar, but still it was _different_. He thinks, hopes, because if not, then-- "Our king was dead, and we were betrayed," he says, and maybe it's an excuse but, remembering how things went down, he doesn't have it in him to regret their choices, not at the front. "Our lieutenant dead too, and our sergeant told us to retreat, because--" Because she was a good soldier who knew how many of her men had been recruited locally. "She said there was no way to hold back the horde, so we should go home, get our families out. So I went. And my sister was killed by darkspawn, all the same."

Uldred absorbs this, and then he nods, shifting his feet. "I don't know what that was like, ser."

"I don't know what it was like holding the line in Denerim," Carver tells him and he regrets not being there, not defending Ferelden at the end. 

But. At the time it had been all about Bethany and Garrett and his mother. He'd _tried_ , and everything had failed. Garrett laughed about it sometimes and Carver wanted to shove it down his throat every time, because Garrett _didn't know_ , hadn't been there, had never stood before a tide like that and then been told there was nothing he could do.

"Maybe you're a better Fereldan than me," Carver says, not sure what he really means by it.

Uldred shakes his head. "No better or worse."

Still. "Is that it, then? You thought you'd pay me back for deserting?"

But again Uldred shakes his head. "Didn't have nothing to do with _that_. Just didn't name any names when they asked."

What? "I don't understand."

"They asked if I knew about it." The older knight shrugged, glancing away. "Didn't tell them a thing. We're all brothers, ser. Not supposed to grass out your brethren."

That, at least, makes sense. But, in face of punishment, that he'd hold his peace... "You got sent down for it."

"That I did." He meets Carver's eye, so sure and so steady, and Carver thinks, _If you respected me,_ but then, what? Either he does or he doesn't, no way to make him.

"If you're to be my second," Carver says, "I'll need you to sound out the squad for me. Your brethren."

Uldred nods, apparently nonplussed. "Won't be one of them anymore, if you do that to me."

"If you don't want it--" Carver starts, but Uldred shakes his head.

"I want it, ser. Just saying, an adjutant's halfway to an officer. Not like the rest."

It's true. Carver doesn't know how to talk about things like this, has no idea if he's supposed to commiserate or, or something else. "Well. Harrison, then. What d'you think I should do with him? I have to do _something_."

Uldred breathes in deep, blows it out again, looking almost irritated. If the man has it in him to be irritated about anything. "Something permanent, ser." Carver doesn't say anything, because, well, what? and after a breath Uldred goes on regardless. "He deserves stripes or stripping. Or, at least, a twenty-eight." He shrugs, settling his stance into something more casual. "I put him in the cells for you already."

Carver hadn't asked, but it seems fitting. "Because he killed that mage?"

"Because he disobeyed you, ser." Uldred looks so unconcerned. "That's all."

"Was he wrong?" Carver asks, because of course he does, he can't help himself.

Uldred blinks, but he says-- "From where I was standing?" He raises his chin a very little. "A man is dead. Mage or not, he's dead and he needn't be. Harrison was wrong, ser. I liked your way."

Carver nods, jerkily, because that sounded so ... "Good. Uh. The Knight Lieutenant's assigning us a full squad. Be ready for that, tomorrow."

Uldred nods. "Ser."

"Then ... you're dismissed."

When Uldred goes, Carver sits down on his bed, runs his hands through his hair and tries to think. That went well. Did it? Didn't it? That was okay.

Which leaves Harrison. By breakfast, Tristram had said. Fuck.

Stripes. Public humiliation and scars. Maker, Carver can't do that to a man just for ... but another man is dead, and should he?

Strip him of his rank. No, his _knighthood_. Bound only by a recruit's oath, returned to the yard -- that would chafe, and how it would excite the recruits, always so easily aroused. But the message it would send would be unmistakable, an example to others of the penalties for disobedience. For so many of them the honour of a knighthood was the only carrot keeping them in line, and to know it could be taken from them should they prove unworthy of it might make it all the more valuable to them. Or, devalue it entirely. He can't be sure.

Twenty-eight days in a cell, by comparison, seems so little. And therefore, is it too little? A black mark and incarceration, lyrium rationing, time to brood. Would Harrison come out of it chastened or all the more determined to be insubordinate?

Carver just doesn't _know_.

He's still thinking on it over dinner, in the bath after, when he's bedded down for the night with the pillow folded over his head to dull the snores of his fellow knights corporal. 

The demon, when he comes, seems to find this amusing. "It's an opportunity to humiliate him. Why not take it?"

"It's not about that."

The demon huffs out a breath -- it's an affectation, Carver knows it, because the demon doesn't need to breathe at all, soaked in fade-stuff as he is. "You want to hurt him. Humiliation is the only way, with a man like that."

"I don't want to hurt him."

"Don't lie," the demon chides. He's in what Carver thinks might be his natural form, tall and slender, those horns curving back from his head like twisted daggers. He doesn't wear much when he's like this, only strings of gems and golden chain, heavy belts draped like a skirt to hide what hangs between his thighs. They are good thighs, strong and inviting, and Carver tries not to look too hard at him. "You _want_ to. You don't think you ought to want to, that's all."

He -- it? -- has a point, and Carver resents it fiercely, which only makes the demon chuckle.

"That's what you're all about, little Templar. Wanting things you think unworthy of you. Or things you think yourself unworthy of. There's no shame in wanting. Desire makes you mortal."

"So I should give in to it?" He rolls his shoulders against the fat stuffing of the couch, turning away to look into the fire burning blue and purple in the grate. "Is that what you think?"

"I think you should admit your desires to yourself. And indulge them." He smiles, a thin sharp curve that means nothing. "Let me help you."

Carver feels the sneer on his face and feels ashamed of it, though he doesn't know why. "Yeah? How d'you reckon you can help?"

The demon leans against the wall, watching Carver with bright lavender eyes. "The worst humiliation would be forcing him to choose his own punishment."

For a moment Carver doesn't understand, but then he remembers. "Harrison."

"Did you think we were talking about something else?"

Carver ignores the wry twist of his mouth, the way one hand smooths up his sleek belly. There are rings in his nipples, heavy gold things that Carver wonders about, sometimes.

And then-- "I can, of course. Help you. With other things." His fingers tease up, catching one of those fat rings and tugging on it in a lazy, thoughtful sort of way. "You're thinking about someone."

He is, he supposes. Honey-brown eyes and a mouth he remembers smiling for him, though ... not _for_ him, just _at_ him, but how he wishes... "Yeah," he says. But when the demon shimmers, horns fading into a short crop of blond, skin turning warm and familiar, he squeezes his eyes shut. "Don't do that. I don't want--"

"You do want," the demon says in Cullen's voice.

"I don't want you to _do_ that," Carver snaps. "Stop it _now_."

There's a pause, and then a sibilant sigh that is nothing like Cullen. "As you wish." When Carver opens his eyes again the demon has paled back to grey, and he looks so irritated about it that Carver can't help feeling vaguely sorry for him. "Then what would you have of me?"

"Nothing." Still. "Stones?"

It earns him another sigh. "How dull." But he summons a board and pots, settles himself on a stool at the end of the couch. "If that's all you'll let me do for you."

In the morning he goes out to the cells. They're not like the cells in the Gallows, never meant to house a prisoner or a mage, just rooms with holes cut in the doors and bars on the windows. Harrison has a bed and a chamber pot, and when Carver goes in to him he is finishing a breakfast brought in on a tray. Hardly an imposition, all that. Hardly a punishment at all.

Harrison sneers, pushing away his crusts. "Ser," he says, and everything about him is disrespectful.

Carver doesn't care anymore. He knows now what he has to do. "You know what you've done, Ser Harrison. You know why you're here."

Harrison's smile is thin and cruel. "I know my duty." As if he has done it and _that_ is why he's being punished.

"Yeah, well, you fucked that right up, didn't you?" Harrison says nothing to that, watching Carver with eyes like cold slate. "By rights I should have you whipped. Or strip you of your rank. Or lock you up for a month. What do you think I should do with you?"

Harrison's expression doesn't change but his sword-hand flexes dangerously. "Doesn't matter what I think, does it?"

"Yeah, I reckon it _does_. I'm giving you the choice, Ser Harrison. Stripes, stripped, or stuck in a cell. Which is gunna be?"

His eyes narrow, lip curling up to show his teeth. "You're going to make me fucking choose? What if I won't?"

"Then you'll stay here until you do," Carver says, going for cold and hopefully managing it.

Harrison looks savage at that, and oh, how good it feels to actually get under his skin. "Oh yeah? Can't keep me locked up forever," he snarls, and Carver feels lightheaded with a strange distant sort of elation because he _can_ , he can do whatever he fucking _wants_.

"You wanna test that, Ser Harrison?"

Harrison's mouth twists up, savage and violent, and Carver makes himself turn around, makes as if to walk out, but then-- "A month, then," Harrison says, voice pitching up, and Carver thinks, _Yeah, fucking_ yeah _, I got you, you shit._

He turns back. "All right. See you in a month. And make sure we don't ever have this conversation again."

The look on Harrison's face would make it worth it, if only it hadn't cost a man his life.

* * *

Tristram's pleased when Carver tells him. Pleased enough to get into a row about it with the Knight Captain, but when Bridie takes it higher Knight Commander Callion lets Tristram have his way. Or so Carver's told, Lachlan and Geary reporting back with a mixture of astonishment and grudging respect. So that's all right.

The knights Tristram assigns him seem square enough, all right men with all right records. They're pretty nondescript, all told, save for one. The only things that set _him_ apart are the Orlesian accent and the longbow slung across his shoulders -- Ser Gavriel is a templar archer, and while Carver's never had much to do with those before he knows how to field an _archer_ , has spent enough time with Sebastian and Varric to know how to use him. He's cheerful and ugly as sin, nose smashed across his face like the worst of tavern brawlers, but he salutes Carver willingly enough and cracks a joke about sword-and-boarders only existing to keep him alive. Carver likes him okay, likes better the way he teases Lachlan and gets away with it. He keeps Gavriel in his team, lets Uldred have the others, and the drills go off pretty well, giving him some confidence that the newcomers won't be awful, might even be useful. By the end of the week he's feeling good about it, and when he catches Lachlan and Gavriel pulling a prank on Knight Corporal Eddard's squad he can't be too mad at them because, well, it's actually pretty funny.

It's all good. He feels he deserves a reward for it, good as it is, something fun to relieve the tedium of herding juvenile bloody knights who are, honestly, worse than a litter of Mabari because Mabari learn quick, while the junior knights seem thicker than fence-posts, mostly.

So when his free day comes he bathes and shaves, and heads out into the markets to lay down a small fortune for a cut of beef and some bright orange flowers.

When he knocks on the door his heart hammers not because he cares overmuch but because if this goes poorly it'll be embarrassing. 

The door opens, and Rosie cocks her head, eyeing him up obviously enough that he thinks, _Okay_.

"Fancy seeing you, ser knight."

He offers up the paper-wrapped lump of meat, and then wonders if he ought to have begun with the marigolds instead. Still, he remembers Lowtown, and he thinks he knows the measure of things. "I was hungry," he says, and then he feels his face heat because, no, that's wrong. "Thought you might be hungry too."

Her smile is warmer than he deserves. "Well. Best you come in, then. Can't have a templar fainting of hunger on my doorstep, after all."

He doesn't really know what he's expecting, but the children take him by surprise; the boy scowls at him, vanishing into the back of the house with a dark look thrown over his shoulder that Carver doesn't know what to do with. The girl, though, comes up bold as brass.

"Are those for me?" She's small, maybe five years old, with a mess of coppery curls escaping from her braids and a faded green dress to match her pale eyes. She's looking at the flowers, so Carver gives them to her, not sure what else to do.

Rosie snorts. "Oh, aye? Romancing my baby, it is? She's too young for you, boy-oh," but her expression is fond and Carver just shrugs, feeling like a lumpkin and probably looking it too.

The little girl's face screws up. "Ain't they for me, then?"

"Share them with your mother," Carver says, not sure what else to do, but it seems all right because the little girl takes them off into the kitchen and comes back with the flowers stuffed in a vase that she sets carefully down on the table. Carefully, but water still sloshes everywhere.

"Oh _hells_ ," she says darkly, and Rosie snaps her fingers.

"Enough of that, little witch. Show your manners for the nice templar."

The girl cuts a neat curtsey, so strange on such a little bit of a thing. "Thank-you, serrah ser templar." And then she scurries off, leaving water pooling on the floor.

Carver lets out a breath. "Uh."

Rosie shakes her head. "She's becoming such a little miss." And then she tilts her chin up, eyeing Carver down the length of her nose with a challenge in her eyes. "So, my boy," and there's something in it that makes Carver feel ... definitely okay about whatever she's going to say next. "Hungry for dinner, are ye?"

"Well." Should he? But he feels so bold. "Not _just_ dinner."

She grins, lifting a hand to beckon him over. "Fancy breakfast, and all?"

Hah. "If it's going, yeah."

"Oh, well then," and he really does like her smile. "I suppose we'll have to see."

* * *

He can't hide the bounce in his step when he walks back into the templar compound with the dawn, stubble coming up on his chin. Rosie had chided him for shaving-- "I liked the scruff," she said, running her knuckles up under his jaw in the dimness of her bedroom.

"Want me to grow it out, then?"

She laughed at that, rolling lazily onto him and pinning him to the mattress. "And you'll do that if I give you my say so?"

"Yeah," he said, tangling a hand in her hair, the other smoothing down the curve of her spine. "Want me to grow my hair out, too? In Ferelden, most men have braids."

"Mmm, barbarian dog-lords, the lot of you."

"No, then?"

"Och, no, go on. I might _like_ me a barbarian," and the low roll of her drawl made him feel--

So, walking back in he can't keep the grin off his face, can't help himself. Lachlan gives him a disgusted look when he begs off their early morning spar, but Carver can't even be mad at that, he's too loose, too satisfied in himself. Nothing's going to bring him down from this, he's sure. 

It must be obvious, because when he saunters into Tristram's office Tristram takes one look at him and shakes his head, his chuckle dirty and low. "Look at you, Butcher. Fair glowing, you are. Not pregnant, I hope? Can't be dealing with that, boy-oh."

Carver rolls his eyes and Tristram doesn't call him out for it, just slides a fold of paper across the desk, mouth curled up all wry.

"Well. Letter for you, anyway. Though, if you get any more good news I might be sick to my stomach."

Letters aren't so unusual that Carver has it in him to be concerned about it, he just flops into a chair and cracks the seal and unfolds the paper, still grinning to himself.

_Gamlen Amell to Carver Hawke,_

\-- it begins, and Carver groans, because what the void does Uncle Gamlen want? Money, probably. He really ought to send it, too, because Gamlen ... well, he's family. Worst family, but family, all the same.

Tristram looks up, eyebrows climbing, but Carver waves him off. "My uncle," he says, by way of explanation, and reads on.

_My dear boy,_

_It falls to me to write this, as all unpleasant matters must, but how I wish I didn’t have to._

_It regards your mother._

Carver stops. No. Whatever it is, no, he doesn't want to ... but he has to, doesn't he? He has to know, so he makes himself try again.

_It regards your mother. She has gone to the Maker, if that gives you comfort, but she’s gone before her time nevertheless and I can’t help feeling the Maker doesn’t deserve her._

Oh. Oh, oh, _oh_. Tristram is watching him now, but Carver can't look at him, can't look anywhere but at the paper in his hands because this is ... fuck. No.

_Rest assured that Garrett has Dealt With the bastard who was responsible, or so he tells me. I hope the fucker rots in the void for eternity._

_There’s space for her in the family crypt and for me when my time comes, but I don’t know where you and Garrett will fit. Maybe you’d rather be put somewhere else, I don’t know. It hardly matters, does it? It’s not for the dead so much as the living, and one day, my boy, you’ll be the last of us, so it will be up to you._

_It would be a lie to say I’m sorry you’re not here. I’m sorry you didn’t see more of your mother, I’m sorry for that, but you’ve a life of your own now and are well rid of this cursed family. Maybe Revka’s baby really did taint us all. I’d curse her for that, were she not my cousin, and maybe I curse her a little all the same._

_If you ever come back, buy your favourite uncle a drink, will you? I could use the company. But if you take my advice you’ll cut your ties and just go. Run away with your buxom pirate friend and have fat brown babies or adventures or whatever young people do these days. But don’t let Kirkwall drag you down with us. There’s nothing for any of us here but death and property taxes._

_I'm sorry, my boy. ~~I wish~~_

_Blessings of the Maker on you, Carver._

The paper crumples in his hands, and when he realises what he's done to it he tries to smooth it out, tries to, but, and, no...

"Butcher."

It can't be true. He reads it again, words jumping up to him from the page: _she has gone to the Maker; the family crypt; I’m sorry._

"Hawke?"

_I’m sorry, my boy._

That Gamlen would write this. That Garrett didn't. That it was Gamlen, who--

"Carver, look at me."

He looks up. He has no idea what shape his face makes in the face of this, but whatever it is Tristram has leaned forward, one hand reaching out, and he looks so concerned that Carver can't, he can't bear it.

"My mother's dead," he says. That's it, that's all he has. Maker, if Tristram expects more of him--

But Tristram's eyes go wide and then crease into something that looks so awfully sorry. "Oh. Little brother," and that's somehow worse, because it should be Garrett, it _should_ be, but Garrett is so far away and he _didn't write_ , he isn't _here_ , doesn't care.

No, that's not fair. He probably does, but he _isn't here_ , and he never is, not when things are worst, never ever.

Tristram has come out from behind his desk, has knelt down to put an armoured arm around Carver's armoured shoulders, pulls him down into the worst hug, presses a dry kiss to his temple. "Hey, hey. I'm sorry."

It's all wrong. Everything was good, wasn't it? Why would ... how could the Maker do this to him? And how could he, how could _Carver_ have let this happen?

"Shh," Tristram says, and Carver realises his face is wet, tries to drag himself away because ... oh, this is worse than anything. His mother. And Tristram, here, just now. How could he let _Tristram_ see this? His Lieutenant and, oh Maker, if Tristram thinks him weak, crying over his _mother_...

But Tristram hauls him up, holds him hard, and won't let go. 

"You're all right, Hawke. You're okay. I've got you, all right? I'm right here."

Breathing has always seemed so easy but now it's beyond him, his lungs drawing up and shaking in his chest because ... oh, no, no, no. _The bastard who was responsible_ , means that someone did this, did this to _his mother_ , and if _only_ he'd been there, then ... but Garrett _was_ there, and what had he done? If Garrett couldn't do anything, than what hope did Carver have, ever?

Still.

 _How could you let this happen?_ But, _How could I let this happen?_

"You'll be all right, boy-oh," Tristram says, and then, when Carver has managed to compose himself, he brushes Carver's hair back with the blunt tips of his gauntlet, dark eyes too sincere. "You can go home, if you want it. See to your mother, and whatnot. If you need."

Home? He means Kirkwall. But, like Gamlen said -- "There's nothing for me there," he says, and also, "This is home, now."

Tristram looks him over, seeking something Carver doesn't know how to give, and then he nods. "As you say."


	29. Chapter 29

Mornings are no longer simply heralded by the first blush of dawn creeping into the patch of sky above his bed; now Fenris is nearly always awoken by the heavy thump of a small body on the mattress, followed by the scramble of limbs as Tully pulls himself up.

"Good morning, Uncle!"

Fenris groans, tries to roll over, but Tully is there, already peeling back the covers to climb under them.

" _Mane bonum!_ " he tries again, squiggling down against Fenris' chest and kicking him in the belly. Fenris winces, wraps an arm around him and tries to hold him still. It's no use, of course; Tully wriggles like a puppy, pressing a wet kiss to Fenris' cheek and laughing softly. "Get up today?"

Because Tully makes him get up every day it seems like a pointless question, but Fenris likes to answer Tully's questions, so he rouses himself enough to say, "In a moment. Give your uncle a moment."

Tully settles a little, shoving his head up under Fenris' chin and clinging to him. "Mama makes cakes today. Uncle will like it." He chatters on, making half-sense and no-sense and all the sense in the world, dropping in and out of Tevene as he goes. Fenris does his best to follow it but sometimes it is fruitless, just chatter, and he lets the soft high sound of it wash over him as he gathers his will to get up. It's warm out, coming on to spring, and between Tully and the birds calling across the rooftops Fenris has no peace to wallow in, no way to get back to sleep.

Eventually he sighs, makes himself sit up, and is immediately tackled into a warm little hug.

"Good _morning_!"

" _Mane bonum,_ " Fenris says rustily, and then, because he loves Tully, he runs a hand over the bright little head, bending to kiss it once.

It makes Tully grin at him, and then the boy is off, sliding down the side of the bed only to return with an armful of clean clothes. He's learned that Fenris will linger if allowed even the slightest excuse, so he has decided that the best way to make Fenris get up is to remove the excuses. Clever imp. Annoying, often, but so clever. Fenris is too proud of his cleverness to say him nay when he is like this, and he is often like this.

He dresses, follows Tully downstairs, watching all the while in case Tully falls. He does not, slithers down the stairs like a snake, bouncing from foot to foot when he reaches the bottom, impatient as always.

The kitchen smells good already, grain in a pot that Orana dishes out for them, bread crusting up on the hob, good stock simmering away in the cauldron, redolent with herbs. The last of the crab-apple preserve has been set out, and Fenris makes sure Tully has a good serve of it over his porridge before sharing the remains between the two adult-sized bowls on the table. They'll need more -- he'll go out for it presently, but this morning there are more important things to attend first.

Orana is nervous, Fenris can tell, and he is himself nervous so he does not blame her for it. Tully, meanwhile, only has it in him to be excited, climbing up into Fenris' lap to break his fast. Fenris lets him manage his own spoon -- his table manners are still clumsy but only a little porridge is spilled on the table, which Fenris counts as an improvement.

When Tully's finished, Orana wipes him down with a damp cloth. Tully makes such faces at this, trying to get away, but when his mother chides him quietly he sits as still as he can, always twisting about to see if Fenris is still watching. 

"Uncle!"

Fenris tries not to sigh too obviously. "Yes?"

"Good day?"

The day is too new to judge, but this is a new thing Tully has learned and Fenris, again, encourages it because Orana has told him it is good for Tully to ask.

"So far. And you?" Because Orana has told him it is good for Tully to be asked.

"Yes!"

He makes a face when his mother tugs off his smock, but he raises his arms when she tells him to, letting her dress him in a good new tunic, letting her belt it with a scarf, and then turns his face up to be kissed. "Look!" And he holds out his arms, showing off his finery. It's just a tunic, clean and new but rough wool all the same.

But Fenris knows better than to ignore his pride. "Very fine," he says, holding out a hand. Tully comes up, lets Fenris tug his tunic smooth over his shoulders, and then he tries to climb into Fenris' lap again.

"No, Tully. You need to sit by yourself. Can you be still?"

The child looks sceptical, little face scrunched up with it, but he nods and tries, dubious all the same.

Fenris finishes his porridge, drinks down his tea, and he is trying not to fidget himself when the knock sounds at the door.

Sebastian no longer comes to the front door, instead approaching the back, where the kitchen opens onto a ragged little courtyard too paved-over for growing things. Fenris has been expecting the knock so he gets up, but Tully reaches the door first and tries his best to tug it open. That he manages it is a testament to his determination, for the thing sticks badly. Fenris imagines there is something to be done about it but has no idea where to begin, so still it sticks, and still Tully manages it in the end.

" _Salve!_ " he shouts.

"Tully," Fenris chides him. "Come back from the door and let Brother Sebastian in."

Tully does as he's told, bouncing on the balls of his feet and laughing.

Sebastian sweeps Tully a deep and respectful bow. "Serrah Tully. Good morning to you."

"Good morning, Brother Sebastian." 

Tully makes a bow in return, and Fenris feels his heart constrict because ... it is endearing how neatly Tully does it, with all the earnestness of a child, but also it is awful that he already knows to bow so deeply to a human.

"Brother Sebastian! We go to school today!"

And Tully is so pleased by this, dancing about in a circle, that Fenris cannot bring himself to be unhappy about any of it.

"We do, serrah. Are you ready?"

Tully says 'yes' but Orana then presses on him a small bundle that includes his lunch and other necessaries, and Tully immediately puts it down on the ground to be forgotten.

" _Tully_ ," Fenris says, "Mind your belongings."

Tully takes back his packet, holds it up to his chest, and then puts out a hand for Sebastian. "Go now?"

Sebastian smiles, glances up at Orana and Fenris before taking the little hand in his own. "Yes, serrah."

Tully chuckles to himself, but then he leans toward Fenris, smiling very sweetly. "Coming?"

"I won't go with you today," Fenris tells him, and Tully looks deeply upset for all of a moment, but then he frowns, all seriousness, and turns his face up to regard his mother.

"Mama? We go?"

"No, my love," she says in Tevene, kneeling down to take Tully's face in her hands. She kisses his cheeks, smooths the overlong locks of hair out of his face. "Go with Brother Sebastian. Mind him, he is as your papa today. Understand?"

She says it in Tevene and Tully answers her in Tevene. "Understand." And then he twists, beaming up at Sebastian. "Do we go?" he says, still in Tevene, and this is a thing they will have to cure him of, somehow, this tendency to speak to others in a language they do not understand. Sebastian, to his credit, simply smiles.

"Ready, aye?"

"Aye!"

Sebastian tips his smile up, catches Fenris' eye. "I'll mind him, never you fret."

As though he understands how reluctantly Fenris permits this. "See that you do," Fenris tells him, too blunt, too rough, but Sebastian nods and tows Tully out, measuring his stride to the brisk trot of little feet by his side.

With the door shut behind them Fenris exhales the breath he has been holding, letting his head drop into the palm of one hand, uncertainty and fear mixing in his gut. Tully will be fine. He's three years old, no longer a baby, certainly old enough to spend the day with Sebastian in the Chantry school despite Fenris' misgivings. But Sebastian is right; he needs to spend time with a variety of other children, needs the discipline of a classroom, needs something that is not the isolation of a crumbling mansion peopled only by slaves.

But how Fenris _aches_ to let him go.

Orana pours tea into his cup, smiling brightly. "Worry not. Brother Sebastian will let no harm come to our Bean."

Tevene, again, and yes, this is what Sebastian takes the child away from, this insular existence, their sanctuary in which no-one may shame them nor berate them for being as they are. Slaves, with their slave-child, speaking the language of their enslavement, following the well-worn rut of their slavery. 

"I have chores for you," Orana says lightly, not meeting his eye. "If it is distraction you require."

Ah, how well she knows him. He nods, pushing himself to his feet. "I would welcome distraction, today."

He comes to regret this when she has him up to his elbows in steaming laundry. And again with the stairs half-scrubbed, and yet _again_ when she opens up the rooms they never use and declares they need sweeping.

"They are mausoleums," he argues, "for people long gone. Why not leave them to moulder in peace?"

Her regard is too direct now for a slave, and unmistakably wry. "I do not wish to raise my son in a house of the dead," she says, and from anyone else it would be mild but from her the rebuke in it is sharp.

Fenris sighs, and bends his back as she directs him.

They break for lunch, fresh bread and savoury broth, and Fenris wonders what Tully does now. It is rote-learning and recitation, copying on a slate, Sebastian has told him. The Chant. The histories. Alphabets, numbers, simple mathematics and grammar -- things Fenris was never taught in this way. Tully will be meet for it, he hopes, the little boy is so _clever_ , and Fenris is so proud of him for it. He will be fine. The other children ... Fenris has seen Tully with the little elves in the alienage, has seen how easily Tully makes friends. Surely it will be no different in the Chantry school, under Sebastian's eye.

Surely he will be fine.

Fenris frets all through the afternoon, goes out to fetch household goods with a list Orana has drilled into him. He buys flour, lard, cabbage, fruit preserves, the baked apples he likes and the fresh quinces that Orana favours, a few dried figs for Tully. A cut of goat, gory with blood, the scent of which recalls to him a time when things were easier in some ways, harder in others. Soap, because they need it. Honey, because they are not _poor_. Wine, just because. When his coin is gone he takes his purchases home, stacks them neatly in the larder according to Orana's design, and settles down to ... what? He goes over his armour, oiling it where it needs oiling, mending the parts he can mend, taking note of the parts that want the attention of an armourer.

It is, then, in this mood that Hawke finds him.

"Fenris." No 'hello', no greeting of any kind -- Hawke simply walks in, alone for once, the staff on his back seeming to bow him down. He takes a seat without asking, sinking into it with a weariness Fenris has seen grow over him these last years. Fenris does not have it in him to be concerned, though he understands the cause. Varric has said that Hawke is still mourning, and in truth he has been like this since the loss of his mother to the Maker, or maybe since the loss of Carver to Starkhaven. But Fenris thinks there is more to it, more wearying him, more weighing him down.

Usually Hawke does his best not to show it, forces his smiles and his laughter, but he does not bother with it when there is only Fenris to see. Fenris knows why. It is not as though Hawke thinks of him as a person, after all.

"I'm going out," Hawke says, examining his fingernails with a studied kind of nonchalance. "Slavers, the Wounded Coast, so on. Bran's offering a reward for the work, you know how it is."

He had used to care. Fenris remembers it, remembers how Hawke had scowled over such things, how he had wanted something, a better kind of world for his mother and his brother to live in. Now, however, he is going through the motions, playing the part of the Champion, for no reason Fenris can see. It is hardly as though he needs the coin.

He looks up now, meets Fenris' eye, and there is so little behind the look that Fenris wants, in a small way, to make him angry, if only to see him feel _something_.

"You'll come, won't you?"

Fenris shrugs, notes how it drives a groove between Hawke's brows. "You say there is coin in it."

"Oh, _well_. If the knowledge that you've done something _good_ for Kirkwall isn't enough ... yes. Fine, I'll pay you. Will you come?"

He doesn't mean it. Fenris sees Carver in Hawke's face, but a Carver who has ceased to care, and it makes him tight inside, unhappy. It feels strange -- Carver had always cared so much and Fenris had wished he would not, but now, confronted with _this_ he cannot help but think that Carver not caring, _uncaring_ , would be unfathomably worse.

Hawke seems to take his lack of response as a refusal; he sighs, rubs his fingers over his face as though pushing something into his skin. "I wish you'd ... Fenris. Can't you just _help_ me, for once, instead of being ... _this_? We were family once, weren't we? When you and Carver ... practically family, anyway."

Fenris thinks of Varania, and thinks, _Family means nothing_. But, he thinks of Tully and Orana and no, _Family is everything_. Still. "We were never family."

"But you miss him, don't you?" Hawke's dark eyes are such a familiar shape, and now they fill with an awful needy plea that Fenris cannot bear from him because he has seen it before, in another face so much the same. "I know you do. _I_ do. Maker, I never ... he used to be so _annoying_ , but now? I miss that. How irritatingly stubborn he could be. Though," he adds, gesturing wearily with one hand, "I suppose I have you now for that."

Fenris says nothing to that, refuses to imagine himself filling the void Carver has left in someone else's life.

Orana comes in with tea in a pot and small honeycakes on a tray, and Hawke is charming to her, though she deflects it neatly enough that Fenris thinks Hawke is unaware of how his attentions go unaccepted. She curtsies to Hawke, glancing up at Fenris to see if he wants anything more, and disappears with all the perfect silence of a perfect slave. Fenris would hate that if he did not recognise it now as her armour. How strong she is beneath it. How _brave_. And determined to remain untouched, behind the bulwark of her subservience. He had thought her broken, once. Now he sees that she has mastered the art of bending, to hide her core of iron.

The cakes are good. Tully will approve. Hawke devours them artlessly, compliments falling from his lips like the crumbs he is too well bred to dust onto the floor. Fenris accepts the compliments, storing them up to deliver to Orana later because they may please her.

And then-- "If I had news of Carver, would you come?"

Fenris does not know what to say. He says, "Do you have news of him?"

"Not much," Hawke admits. "Only what filters through Uncle Gamlen, when he's in his cups. Carver writes to him -- can you believe it? He doesn't write to me." He sounds so indignant it is almost amusing. "Not even when Mother died."

"Did you write to him?"

Hawke shakes his head, looking sour. "I couldn't."

"Perhaps he could not, either."

There is a pause, and Fenris does not know what Hawke is thinking, right up until Hawke looks up, with those narrow human eyes. "Did you?"

"Once. There was no reply." It still aches, the emptiness of hearing nothing, knowing nothing, and he thinks that silence was a kind of reply in itself, proof that he had hurt Carver too badly for Carver to say anything to him. And he knows Carver. All those letters Carver had written, that Fenris has kept tied up with a scrap of blue trouser-cloth, hidden behind the books now stacked on the shelves of his room. Carver would write, if he cared. If he had anything to say.

Hawke closes his eyes. "I don't think he's coming back. Or, rather, Gamlen thinks not. He's doing well over there, catching apostates for the Circle." Ah, his bitterness. Hawke has never forgiven his brother, Fenris thinks, for the crime of choosing the Order over _him_.

But Fenris knows too that Hawke misunderstands this. "He thought you dead. The choices he made were out of desperation, not disloyalty."

And he sees Hawke hear this, consider it, and reject it. "He did what he wanted, like always."

"Do you understand that no choice he has made has _ever_ been purely for himself?" It is bold to say this -- to Hawke, to a mage, to the Champion of Kirkwall -- but it cannot be left unsaid. "I thought ... for a long time, I thought him selfish, in his attention to mages within the Gallows. I believed his motives impure. A betrayal. But I was wrong." He thinks, anyway. "I believe much of his motivation was due to his love of his sister. And his father. And you."

"You think the best of him, though," and Hawke looks angry for a moment, weariness pushed aside for something darker. "Of course you'd say that."

_I should always have thought the best of him,_ but Fenris does not say that, bites down on it instead because that is nothing Hawke deserves to hear. Instead-- "Who would know him better than I?"

This seems to go deep, or at least Hawke takes it that way. He frowns down at his hands, so _old_ now, so weathered. He hides it with smiles, usually, but now it is stark on his face. The mantle of Champion chafes him, Fenris thinks, and he wonders what Hawke wants for himself that he has not aggressively taken for himself.

He looks up. Fenris is glad his eyes are not blue like his brother's, for if they were then this look might smite him. "Did you love him?"

Such a question. From such a man. The answer is complicated, or blazingly simple, and Fenris says, "I do."

Hawke looks torn open by this, awful and raw and Fenris looks away from him because this is not a thing he should see.

But, eventually, Hawke musters an unforgivably light chuckle. "Shall we conspire to bring him home, then? 

It's nonsense, from a man who spouts _nonsense_ as other people speak platitudes. "I would never conspire with you against him."

"It needn't be _against_ ," Hawke says, wry and himself again. "For his own good, maybe. He can't be _happy_ there, without us two." He smiles, and his smile is charming, and Fenris feels how shallow it is but does not know what to do with it. "We _should_."

Fenris sighs, and takes up another cake. "I cannot stop you. But I will not aid you in this." There is nothing Fenris could do to help, in any case.

Hawke eyes him for a moment, but then he says, "Will you instead come with me to put some slavers in the ground, then?"

And it comes back to this.

Fenris finishes his cake, dusts off his fingers, and says, "Yes. I shall."

"Good!" Hawke is up on his feet, vital again in a way he has not been for some time. Fenris likes it better, Hawke excited rather than despondent, though he does not feel responsible for the change and cannot be certain of the cause. "We'll go tonight, if you're ready. I'll come fetch you for it."

After he's gone Fenris goes to his shelves, takes down his hidden letters, reads them over -- for once sober enough that he need not labour drunkenly over Carver's rough, heavy script. The warmth that comes of them is unlike the warmth of wine or a good fire. And the coldness that comes of putting them away again leaves him empty.

When Tully comes home he is bright with stories, pleased to eat cakes, and exhausted enough to fall asleep in Fenris' lap with the sun still in the sky. Fenris puts him to bed, smoothing the hair out of his face. His eyes have darkened over the years, blue giving way to amber, but if anything the sun has kissed gold into his hair, bronze into his skin. He is still so small -- small even for an elf -- but so, so clever, and Fenris must--

"I go with Hawke tonight," he tells Orana, and also, "If anything happens to me..."

Orana nods, touches his arm very gently. "All will be well."

Maybe. Fenris arms himself, and he thinks, _Maker protect them,_ because they are all he has. And more than he deserves. He loves them both, though the words do not come easily.

"Be well," he says. Orana smiles, and this will be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, time skip!
> 
> So, yes, I'm still writing this, and though I'm not asking for encouragement (I'm honestly busy with other things and frankly all the encouragement you've given so far has been fabulous) if you want to bug me to write more I give you free rein to 'annoy' me. It won't be annoying, I swear, but it might bump it up the list of Things To Do.
> 
> Also: we're getting to the endgame *twitches with excitement* I'm looking forward to finishing this fic. Hope you are too!


	30. Chapter 30

The shutters are locked, but Isabela makes swift work of them all the same. She doesn't know why he bothers -- there's no point to it, and they both know. But it is a thing he does and picking the lock is a thing _she_ does, and now they can bicker about it, which is pleasant in its way. Comfortable. Familiar. Just a thing they do.

She lights a candle. His room is as it always is, neat as a pin these days, everything folded or hung and put away in its place. She messes it up a little -- another thing she does -- rearranging his books, hiding his stockings, folding a jaunty paper hat out of a receipt and balancing it on the head of the little wooden idol of Andraste he has on his vanity where any sensible person would prop a mirror.

And she slips out of her smalls, little lacy things that cost a small fortune and aren't at all sensible, and tucks them in the pocket of some formal robes hung on a peg. There. Perfect.

She knows where he keeps his wine, fishes out a bottle and pops the cork with a knife. It is, really, _her_ wine, bought for her because he knows now that if she can't find any she brings rum and he dislikes the smell of it lingering in his room in case it is discovered. As if anyone minds _rum_. Stupid stuffy Chantry with its stupid stuffy rules. A bit of rum never hurt anybody, and while she appreciates that sometimes it is _necessary_ to ration these things out -- a drunken crew is a sloppy crew -- without a few indulgences a man goes _mad_. Women the same. Nobody's pure as the driven snow _all_ the time. Not even him.

She props herself on his bed, the one measly pillow folded up in the small of her back, wine at hand, crosses her legs one over the other, and helps herself to the writing things on the little table beside the bed.

Now. Where was she? 

Ah, yes--

_"Mercy," begged the little priest, grovelling on the floor in his brine-soiled robes. He struggled against the ropes binding his wrists, urgently and fruitlessly, his eyes wild with an admixture of reluctance and desire. "I beg of you, my lady, have mercy."_

_His cruel pirate mistress laughed, tossing her glossy salt-flecked hair carelessly over one bare shoulder. "Oh, I'll show you mercy, my lovely Andrastian. Once you've proved yourself useful."_

_"Anything," he swore, his bright aquamarine eyes tormented with the tumult of emotion in his chest. "If my service will buy my freedom."_

_"Then serve," she instructed, unbuckling her gloriously swashy coat and letting it fall to the floor to reveal her bountiful nakedness. "Serve me as you would your precious Andraste."_

_Oh, the glory of her ripe breasts, her luscious hips, the dewy valley of her sex. How he longed to worship her, to bend knee at her altar and praise her with his lips, his tongue, his unworthy fingers._

_"As you will it, mistress," he agreed, shame burning in his cheeks._

_The magnificent Captain lay back on her bunk, thighs parted to reveal her inviting rosy folds, and beckoned him to come to her. "Then do so," she purred, and he, Maker forgive him, was too weak before the pleasures of the flesh to resist._

She pauses her pen at the click of the door. There is always the chance that it _won't_ be him, but tonight it is. He stops dead in the doorway, eyes raking over her, and then he comes in, closing the door behind him very quickly and throwing the latch.

"Isabela," he sighs, and he tries to sound put-out, she knows, but these days he's not very good at it. "There's a _lock_ on those shutters."

"And I didn't break it," she says cheerfully, setting aside his pen, his ink bottle, his lap-desk. "So we're even."

"I fail to see how you deigning to leave my lock intact makes us in any way even." He leaves it there, coming around to take the parchment from her hand. "Do you know this is meant for contemplation of the Chant?" he asks, trying for stern and missing it by inches. 

She grins at him. "That only makes it better."

The roll of his eyes says what he thinks of that, and then he is reading, eyebrows rising like the colour in his lovely cheeks. "I see things are progressing along predictable lines," he says eventually, cutting her an amused look over the parchment edge.

"Are you criticising my narrative? For _shame_ , Sebastian, you're supposed to be reading for _mood_."

"The mood is lewd, as always," he counters, and she laughs. How like a priest.

"That rhymed, sweet thing. Are you a poet now?"

"I could write odes to the Maker," he says evenly, beginning the process of unbuckling his armour and laying it piece by piece on the stand against the wall. "Would you like to hear one? 'O, Maker, give me strength in all things, that I may tolerate the wickedness this woman brings.'" He arches one perfect brow at her. "Something like that, aye?"

"Oh, _aye_. Go on, tell me of her wickedness. Rail at me about the evils of beautiful, irresistible, delightful women. I'd prefer it if you did it with your robes off, though," she adds, just to see him smile.

It's such a pretty smile. 

"She is a very wicked woman," he drawls, unshouldering his robes for hanging, and she shivers because _that drawl_ , how it _does_ things to her. "Deserving of correction."

Oh, he's delightful. "Then correct away. Maybe she needs to be spanked, to teach her the error of her wanton ways. Perhaps she aches for a firm hand to put her in her place."

It makes him chuckle, a warm rich sound. He shakes his head at her. "I do not know that her _place_ is a thing I could ever dare to teach her. Not a wild thing, such as she."

Isabela bites her lip, warmed by the roll of words in his mouth. Ah, if only he'd put that saucy tongue to better use. "You could try. Wouldn't the Maker want that of you?"

"I doubt the Maker would be pleased by any of the things that I want of her."

He says, knowing exactly how affecting it is. Such an awful man, now he's given himself leash enough to give voice to what he does want. Such a _rogue_. If only he'd indulge.

But she supposes that he does, to the extent he can permit. She uncrosses and recrosses her legs, noting the dart of his eyes as she does. How lovely.

"Come down here," she says, and he does, in what he probably thinks of as a scandalous state of undress. Shirt and trou and his feet bare, this is as close as he'll allow himself to be with her -- he settles onto the bed, leaning over her to reach for the wine bottle and taking a pull from it, setting it down again and wiping his mouth on his wrist. Then he turns to her, eyes gone soft with fondness. 

"Isabela," he says, fingers coming up to caress her cheek. 

But she wants more than that, presses up to meet his lips and he opens for her, mouth hungry, and it's wonderful. So many men do not understand the power of a kiss to unlock a woman's legs, but he _does_ , lipping at her with such attention, his tongue flickering against hers, and _oh_ how she'd like that tongue on her below.

He comes up over her, pressing her back against the wall between the bedposts, kneeling up between her thighs, but he will not touch her with his hands, keeps them far from her body, braced on the bed. The weight of him is lovely, the scent of his incense-wreathed hair lovely, the firm-softness of his clever mouth _lovely_ , and she enjoys it as deeply as she can in this tiny space he gives himself license to enjoy _her_.

But, as always, he stops before it can go far enough, leaning back, mouth red and his breath gone shallow.

"Ach, Isabela." He shakes his head, the same old rueful regret twisting his handsome features. "I would tell you not to come, but..."

"But you want me to," she supplies, looping her arms about his neck, running her fingers up into his too-neat hair to muss it into messy waves. "And I want to. Come, I mean."

Once upon a time he would have shied from that, but that was a lifetime ago, and now all he does is groan, dropping his head to kiss her collarbone. "I wish ... but, alas." He looks up at her, and the candlelight is unfairly kind to his eyes, beautiful as they are even in the harshest of sunlight. "Such is your lot, when you choose to torment a man of the cloth."

"I imagine there are men of the cloth who have less restraint than you, sweet thing."

He nods, brow furrowing. It ought to suit him ill, but he is, damn it, equally handsome when cross or frustrated or anguished beyond words. She has seen him at his worst and he was as beautiful then as he is now. This, she thinks, might be punishment for her sins. If she believed in such silly things as sins.

"Restraint is what makes me a man, instead of a degenerate."

"No, a priest," she argues, "instead of a man."

"I won't argue with you," he says softly, lashes dark on his cheek. "Not now."

"Then don't." She kicks a boot-clad ankle up over the sweet curve of his hip, tugging him closer. She can feel him, firm and upright in his trousers, and he groans as she presses him down, as she grinds her hips up against that delicious too-clothed flesh.

"Isa _bela_." He puts his mouth to her throat, rocking against her once, as though he can't help himself. "Are you--" and his fingers flicker against her hip, slipping up under the hem of her shirt to find only naked skin. He sighs. "You'll ruin my trousers, like this."

"Then take them off," she teases. It's only half a tease. As much as he restrains himself she thinks he might slide right into her if only she can catch him naked. If he could convince himself it was unavoidable.

He breathes in, and out, both over-laboured, both regretful. "And if once I did, I fear you would never come to me again. Once you had taken your fill of me."

It would be easy to make mock of that, and she knows he has left himself open on purpose, so that should she mock him he would have good reason to pull away. And thus she mocks him, because this is what they do. This is their unspoken contract, and she will not break it, not now.

"My fill? That would depend on how well you wielded your dagger," she teases, and he relaxes, pushing himself up, away from her.

"A dagger? Do you think me so little? I have it from a good source that my weapon is a _fine_ forged thing."

Because she told him that, and her own words returned drag a throaty chuckle from her chest. "Oh, well. It's been _ages_ since I saw it. And they shrink, you know, from disuse."

"You think I do not use it?" 

She grins. "I think you let it rust in its sheath."

"Have we not discussed this already?" He sits up, fingers trailing down her thigh. He takes the front tail of her shirt and tugs it down over her, giving back some decency. "I would not be so foolish as to leave a blade unpolished."

"You are such an _awful_ tease," she sighs. "You are a very bad man, pretending to be a good man."

His expression creases, brows drawn down, and she kicks herself mentally because, well, of course he'd take it that way. "I fear you are more right than you know."

"You're not _bad_ ," she tells him, stroking his draw arm. "Just ... naughty."

"I'll be sure to take comfort in that," he says, with a reassuring wryness. "From such a source as thee."

"I'm _amazing_ , you should always listen to me."

"I do, Maker help me." He catches her fingers, lifting them to his mouth and pressing his lips to them with delicate reverence. "And you are. Indeed." There's a terrible honesty in his eyes, but it drains away as he lets her hand fall. "I have something for you."

"Oooh, is it six inches long and four 'round?" she asks, knowing the answer but knowing too how good it is to tease him.

"Sadly, I cannot offer you _that_." He leans down over her to reach beneath the mattress. For a moment she wonders, but then he has a little bit of black cloth in his hand and she pouts, recognising it.

"Oh, and here I was expecting a gift."

"You must have thought them gift enough when you left them for me to find," he says evenly, dangling the cloth from his fingers. "They're cleaned, by the by. Luckily, I tend my own chores. Imagine if a novice had found them in my bed when she bundled up my laundry."

Isabela chortles, catching the cloth from his fingers and jacking up a knee to ease a booted foot into one leg-hole. "Imagine the _scandal_. So, did you rinse them in your wash basin, dry them out on a peg?"

"Something like that." He watches her settle her smalls, fingers twitching on his thigh as though he'd like to help. The restraint is, she thinks, appealing. One day she'll get him to shed it, and find out if he can deliver on the promise of his kisses.

"Well, if you're _quite_ sure, then I'll be off. Back to my sad room, all alone..."

He snorts, eyeing her with amusement. "You told the others you were headed to the Rose tonight."

"I _lied_ , sweet thing." She kicks her boots up off the bed, and rolls to her feet. "Don't you know I'm a liar?"

"I'm still not certain whether it is only about things that do not matter," he says, with far too deep an insight, "or only the things that do."

"Mmmm, well, you contemplate that in your barren cloister," she says blithely, opening the shutters and swinging a leg over the sill. "If you have nothing better to contemplate, which, frankly, you ought to."

He sighs, and for a moment he looks as though he means to get up, to come to her, perhaps to administer a last kiss. But. "Goodnight, Captain."

"Goodnight, choirboy."

He's so wicked, really. Not a bad man, but a wicked one trying to be good. Just a bit of fun for her, nothing more.

And if she lingers a little in the shadows, watching the candlelight play through his shutters, he never needs to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that took forever >_>
> 
> Meanwhile, thank-you for all your LOVELY encouragement! You can all feel partially responsible for this. (translation: It is your fault, and I blame you. And I thank you, endlessly.)


	31. Chapter 31

He hammers on Tristram's door before dawn, throwing it open with a hard bang just because he can. "Rise and shine, ser!"

Tristram groans and chucks a pillow at him. "To the _void_ with you!"

Carver knows him well enough now to take up the pillow and lob it back. "Slug-a-bed, then? What's the excuse, ser? Illness, is it? Or old bones? If your lady rode you too hard I'm sure the Knight Commander--"

Tristram emerges from his blankets far enough to shoot Carver a venomous look. "Shut your whore mouth, Butcher. Where's my tea?"

Carver lifts the mug off the wash-table and sets it beside the bed. "There, when you're ready for it, Knight Captain."

There's a lot of grumbling, a lot of fuss, but eventually Tristram comes up out of his bed, the covers wrapped about his hips, glowering fit to burst. "Don't you 'Knight Captain' me, boy-oh, not 'fore it's announced. Don't want to jinx it."

But Carver doesn't believe in jinxes, or any of the regular Starkhaven superstitions. So, he grins. "Knight Captain, _Knight Captain_..."

Tristram glares again, tipping up his mug to gulp down his tea. Lukewarm and milky, just the way he likes it. Carver knows him that well, at least. 

"You flirt with things beyond your ken, little brother," Tristram growls. "Now, get out. I'll dress in privacy, if you don't mind."

"Need a hand with your armour, ser? I understand if your old joints can't manage the stretch."

" _Out_ , you wretch. I can still beat you flat in the practice yard if I must! Go, or I'll have you digging out latrines."

He sounds half-serious so Carver leaves him to it, smiling for himself because today ... well, today everything should come together right, for once, and he can't wait.

Lachlan knows something's up. He pesters Carver all day, dogging his heels like a half-trained mabari pup, practically salivating with eagerness.

"Is it true there'll be Announcements today?" he demands, bouncing on his toes in his eagerness.

Carver does his best to look noncommittal, scratching gauntleted fingers through his beard. "Probably."

Lachlan looks like he's going to swallow his tongue. Or chew it off. "Anything good?"

"I can't tell you that," Carver says, but of course Lachlan rolls his eyes. "What d'you think, then?"

"Ser!" The boy -- but he isn't a boy any longer, he's practically a man, now -- is almost vibrating out of his skin. "C'mon, ser, don't!"

Maybe he deserves a little something. And it's only for a day. "Don't worry, Ser Lachlan. You'll have good news come dinner time."

" _Ser..._ " He glowers, worse when Carver laughs at him. But he doesn't curse Carver out or storm off, just makes an angry noise and falls into step at his shoulder, sulking like a child half his age. Carver doesn't feel a bit sorry for him. The good news, when it comes, will put all that right. 

Oh his face, though, at dinner when the Knight Commander stands up from the officers table and raises a hand for silence.

"I have Announcements for you. As some of you may know, we will be losing our Knight Captain at sevenday's end. Ser Bridie is transferring to Ansberg, and all the best to him. I'm sure he will be sorely missed."

Knight Captain Bridie looks sour, offering a thin smile to the knights in the mess. Yeah, he's not happy, but he's an incompetent lump and Carver's well shot of him.

And, of course--

"Which leaves a vacancy in our ranks. After careful deliberation, it has been decided that the best man to fill Knight Captain Bridie's boots is our own Ser Tristram. Knight _Captain_ Tristram," he says, gesturing for Tristram to get up. "Congratulations, Knight Captain. I'm sure you'll be a credit to the office, and serve the Order well."

Tristram's grin is huge. He salutes the mess, still grinning. "Thank-you, Knight Commander. I'll do my very best."

He winks, like the rogue he is. Carver's among the men on their feet, cheering and saluting. Tristram's popular in the barracks, more popular than Bridie ever was, and it's clear that both men know it, Tristram gleeful and Bridie clearly bitter about the whole thing.

Carver doesn't give a fig for what Bridie feels. Good riddance. It's all politics, anyway. Bloody politics.

The Knight Commander raises his hand again and waits for the tumult to die down. "Now, as I'm sure some of you _also_ know, Knight Lieutenant Francis and Knight Corporal Bern will be transferring to Cumberland, and Knight Corporal Ciaren to Tantervale. All the best to you boys. You'll do us proud, I'm sure. Which leaves us short two Lieutenants. To fill their posts, Ser Hilary and Ser Carver are hereby promoted to Knight Lieutenant. Well done, lads. I expect you'll work hard to prove you deserve the honour."

The applause this time is mixed. Hilary is Starkhaven born and raised, but Carver's always been an outsider. It's clear some of the knights here are displeased that they have to share the honour of promotion for one of their own with a Fereldan -- worse, one who was Kirkwall-trained. 

Carver doesn't care. For one, well. He's a Lieutenant, now. That's good. That's _amazing_.

For two ... He sees Lachlan's face, half excited and half dismayed. The rest of the squad seem well pleased, Gavriel thumping the table with glee, Geary rolling his eyes but lifting a fist in salute all the same. It's an honour for them as well. Carver has been _their_ corporal for two years now and it reflects well on them to see him promoted. Still, it's not the personal triumph Lachlan had wanted, and Carver stands, salutes his brethren, and sits down again, buzzing with the thrill of what's to come next.

"As any of you who can figure must know, this leaves us short a handful of Knights Corporal." The Knight Commander isn't a man who smiles often, and he does not smile now, but there is something in the shape of his body that speaks of a certain kind of pride. Carver hopes it means what he thinks it does. "Therefore, I am pleased to announce the promotion of Ser Taryn, Ser Isley, Ser Gavriel, and Ser Lachlan, to the rank of Knight Corporal. I trust you will show them the respect they are due," he goes on, but the hubbub overtakes him. Ser Isley is _well_ popular, well respected, and the additional excitement amongst Carver's squad is, frankly, tremendous. Gavriel lets out a wild whoop, smacking Lachlan on the back hard enough that Lachlan staggers, halfway to his feet, his expression just ... floored.

Carver cheers with the rest, proud of his boys, and proud of himself, if he's honest. This has been a long time coming, and he won't deny he's worked for it, wanted it for both of them. For Gavriel more, in a way, because the archer is _good_ at what he does, and there are so few archers at the officers table. But Lachlan's come so far from the terrible mess he'd been when Carver first took him in hand, and the pride he feels for Lachlan is personal.

"Some of you may feel," the Knight Commander goes on cutting through the general exultation, "that you have been slighted, or overlooked. Let me assure you that every one of these promotions has been duly earned. I won't hear griping on that score. Work hard, and through diligence you will be rewarded."

And that's it. He sits down, and then -- oh, _then_ \-- the celebrations begin.

* * *

Carver's thinking about leaving the tavern when Lachlan drags heavily on his arm, so drunk it's hilarious, begging for a moment of his time.

"All right, Knight Corporal." 

Lachlan gets this _look_ on his face, a wonderfully happy thing Carver's never really seen from him before. " _Ser_ ," he says, messy and lovely, hair mussed about his face. "Knight _Lieutenant_."

Carver is somewhat less drunk than his corporal, pacing himself because he has other places to be than this shitty tavern at the heart of Starkhaven's pleasure district. 

But still. "Come on." He shuffles Lachlan out into a corridor, braces him against a wall, and grins into his boozy face. "What d'you want of me, then?"

For a moment Lachlan looks actually awful, and Carver steps back, watching Lachlan bring his hands to his face and clutch at his own skin. "I need to ... can I ask you a thing?"

"You already are," Carver says, but when Lachlan crumples, desolate, Carver pats his shoulder. "Go on, Knight Corporal. Whatever you wanna ask."

Lachlan takes a breath, lets it out, and looks too serious for a man so much the worse for drink. "You told me once ... all those tattoos. For when your friends were knighted, or..."

Carver does not reach up to the sunburst on his chest, hidden beneath his shirt. It hurts not to, and he lets himself hurt because ... because he'll always have that, the ink in his skin that means 'Paxley'. He has nothing else of him, but he has _this_ , and it's not enough but it will do.

He takes a breath. "You want a tattoo, Knight Corporal?"

Lachlan nods, and he's drunk but he looks as though he's thought about this, as though he's wanted it for a while but never said, and now he has a reason.

Carver gets that. Ink is permanent, and for things that are _permanent_.

He nods back, gripping Lachlan's shoulder hard so Lachlan can feel it through the fog of drink. "You gunna go get Ser Gavriel? If we're doing this."

Lachlan's face lights up. "Can we, ser?"

Carver smiles, and none of it is forced. "Get your boy, Knight Corporal."

Gavriel is hilarious in his drunkenness, clinging to Lachlan like a limpet and trying so hard to pretend he isn't. They're adorable. Dark curly head bending to blond; the way Gavriel whispers Orlesian things in Lachlan's ear; the way Lachlan listens, his eyes shining. 

Carver sighs, taking the stab of ink against his ribs and trying not to watch them too obviously. They're good together. He hopes they'll be all right together too, that nothing will shatter this whatever-it-is they have. But, he thinks, surrendering the stool and the needle to a nervous Lachlan, that's the thing with ink. They'll never forget this, with it written in their skin.

Lachlan is entertainingly stoic about the pain, but Gavriel jokes at him the whole while, holding his hand and massaging his fingers as a distraction.

"Ah, have I told you about the time I was cruelly tricked by my sisters into wearing a bonnet to my mother's Summersend teaparty?" Gavriel sighs, so put upon, so Orlesian, watching Lachlan under the cover of his thick eyelashes. "I was a laughingstock. But, I maintain to this day that _my_ bonnet was the most beautiful, and the others laughed out of _envy_ "

"You ... you complete _girl_ ," Lachlan gasps, and Gavriel fakes his indignation so perfectly Carver almost feels sorry for him.

Well, almost. He's still _Orlesian_.

"Oh, do you object? I make a lovely woman, when required. So sweet, so submissive," and he bats his eyelids, and Lachlan laughs like he'll die of it.

Once all three of them have a blackwork image of the Starkhaven crest etched in their skin, Carver fishes a sovereign out of his purse and pushes it into Lachlan's hand.

"Go do ... whatever," he says and Lachlan goes a funny sort of red. Gavriel grins at him, with that too-wide mouth and his wreck of a nose. He comes up on his toes, looping an arm around Carver's shoulders, and kisses him cheek-and-cheek, Orlesian style.

"Your generosity is _welcome_ , ser," Gavriel says, and Lachlan only waits a beat before he's kissed Carver right on the mouth, Starkhaven style.

"Thanks. Knight _Lieutenant_." He makes it sound like a curse but Carver knows him better now.

"You're welcome, Knight Corporal. _Knights_ Corporal." And he turns on his heel, because he has somewhere to be. "Blessings of the Maker on you."

* * *

"I'm thinking," Carver says, much later, in the warm cosiness of Tristram's kitchen, "I might ask her to marry me."

It's so late it's practically early, and the MacFarris parlour is still full of smoke and laughter and the gentle plucking of Xavia's lute. Little Alexan sacked out on the rug before Carver even got there, and baby Mino still doesn't stay down through the night so he keeps being passed from lap to lap like a sleepy puppy. Last Carver saw he was up on Lieutenant Hilary's chest, staring the poor man down like a fat little unimpressed owl. It's not the same kind of party as the one for the junior officers and the unranked men, but Carver thinks he might like this one better. There's women for a start, wives and might-as-well-be-wives and a few of Xavia's friends.

And Rosie. Which brings them to this.

Tristram's look isn't easily read. He shrugs, leaning in, though there's no need. "She's already married, little brother."

It's true. Rosie's still wearing the rings, but Carver's not sure if she does it out of sentiment or to show off her skill -- he's pretty sure she _made_ those rings. He's also sure that the only thing holding her back from her Mastersmith stamp is Starkhaven's bizarre laws about women and marriage and husbands and property.

"He's a useless piece of baggage," Carver says, only repeating what Rosie's said about her missing husband. "If he really cared--"

"The Chantry cares," Tristram says, nipping his elbow with two fingers. "You're a Chantry brother, don't forget."

"Lay brother," Carver argues. "Can't she get rid of it? The marriage, I mean."

Tristram gives him a confused look. "It's a _marriage_ , Butcher, not a trade deal."

"In Ferelden," Carver grouses, kicking a foot against a table-leg, "you just ... wear widows weeds for a year. He's been gone longer than that."

"Aye. But d'ye _want_ that?" Tristram raises his eyebrows, hovering in Carver's face like a sad cloud. "Rosie's a fine woman, with fine hips and fine children," he sighs, settling an arm around Carver's shoulders, tugging him in until they're brow to bow. "But you dinna love her. Hold off, son. Find a woman who tears your heart in two. Or a man," he adds, patting Carver's arm. "Whichever. But don't go down in a calm sea."

Carver rolls his eyes. Tristram makes less than no sense, sometimes. "I'm not a _boat_."

"Aye," Tristram agrees, thumping him on the back. "Exactly my point!" 

It all turns into a blur after that.

He drinks too much, but he's definitely drunk _more_ before, and Rosie's so soft under his arm as he walks her home.

"Maker," he breathes, pinning her up against a hitching-post. "You're ... Rosie, I really ..."

She laughs, reaching up to tug his hair. "You're a sweet boy."

"Man," he argues, and she giggles.

"Aye, my big man." She pulls him down for a kiss, and her mouth is sweet with wine. "Take me home, then."

He does, shushing her on the steps because, well, the children. She snickers at him, pressing her fingers to his lips, and pulls him inside, closing the door very quietly. 

They go up. Roly is asleep, little gingery head down near his knees, coiled up as he is. Maura blinks her eyes open at her mother and then closed again, too sleepy to really wake. It's good.

And then Carver takes Rosie to bed. She's sweet, as always, lets him do what he likes, accepts most things with a cheerful acquiescence that ... he likes. He thinks. There are some things he'd like to do for her but she doesn't want them, so ... well. He tries to satisfy her as best he can, all the same, and she sighs in his arms afterward.

"We could," he starts, wondering how to ask her if she wants to be his wife when she is already a wife.

"Oh, we _could_ , could we?" She leans up to kiss the corner of his mouth. "Aren't we happy like this?" 

He doesn't know if she's talking about sex or the other thing, but he's used to agreeing with her now so he wraps an arm around her and goes easily to sleep.

* * *

"You don't love her at all."

Carver shrugs but doesn't look up. The pieces of the puzzle are intricate. He has to pay attention. "Should I?"

"If you want to _marry_ her, then _yes_." Smooth firm hands close on his shoulders, rubbing the tension from his muscles and digging in possessively.

"She's nice," Carver says, leaning into the pressure of those fingers and letting the puzzle drift away. "She's good for me."

"She doesn't understand you."

"Who does?"

The fingers tense, claws coming out to prick his skin. "Only me."

"It's a good thing I have you, then," Carver says, tipping his head to look up.

Warm honey-brown eyes instead of lavender. 

Carver makes a face. "Don't do that."

The eyes flicker to green for a moment and then, there, the same bright lavender he can trust.

"There."

The demon smiles, leans down to press his lips to the line of Carver's hair. He lets it happen, lets himself enjoy it because, well, it's the best thing he has. "You needn't stay in Starkhaven," the demon says, a rich burr in his ear.

"I _like_ Rosie."

"She'll only hold you back," he says, carding purposefully blunt claws through Carver's hair. "We could go anywhere."

"We could. Where d'you wanna go?"

The demon hums, warm and close and dangerous. It's all right, though. "Kirkwall," he says.

It _would_ be good. Carver nods. "We'll see."

* * *

Carver takes his time about it, thinking the thing through over and over until he's sure. Either way, it could be good, here in Starkhaven with Rosie and the kids or back to Kirkwall to ... well, he doesn't know. It would be nice to see his friends. And Cullen ... if he goes back he thinks he might ... _I'll tell him, I really will,_ he thinks, but the idea is frightening in its way.

Though, so is the idea of staying, and closing that door forever.

He decides, after a lot of brooding, that he'll ask her, and if she says no then ... then he'll go back to Kirkwall. In any case, he can't just just keep on like this in limbo, so he sets his mind. Sometimes a man has to make a choice.

He wavers, though, because ... Rosie's _good_. But Tristram's right, he doesn't love her, not like he loved Fenris. And maybe that's for the best. Fenris tore him up, just like Tristram said, and he doesn't know if he can do that again, not ever. The good times -- and they were so, _so_ good, it hurts even now to think about it -- weren't worth the bad. Were they? (Were they?)

So, he buys a ring -- Maker's breath! Buying a ring for a silversmith is _harrowing_ \-- that he tucks into his purse, and he waits for the right time to broach the subject.

In the end, he doesn't get a chance.

He shows up at Rosie's on a fine autumn evening, with a cut of lamb under one arm and that damn ring burning a hole in his purse, to find Roly and Maura sitting on the steps looking glum.

"All right, mice?"

Instead of bristling in his face the way he usually does, Roly just looks miserable. "No."

Carver opens his mouth to ask why, but there's a crash from inside the house and the unfamiliar sound of Rosie's voice raised in anger. 

"What the _hell_?" Carver takes a step forward, about to push in, but Roly leans up against the door and gives him a weary look.

"It's just my da," he says, and Carver ... oh.

"Let me in," he says, "your mother--"

"Ma's all right," Roly says, tipping his head up to sigh at the sky. "She said not to worrit."

Yeah, okay, _no_ , Carver's definitely worried.

Maura sniffs, rubbing her little face with her sleeves, and she's been crying, Carver knows it. "Don't like him," she snuffles. "He's not _my_ da."

"He _is_ ," Roly insists, in a way that makes Carver think this isn't the first time he's said it today. "You just don't n'member."

Fuck. Carver has to go in. He does, he can't _not_. "Let me in," he says, and when Roly looks mulish about it, he frowns. "Roland. Let me in."

Roly pulls an impressive bitchface but he shuffles aside and Carver pushes the door open.

He can hear a man in the kitchen, his soft Starkhaven brogue pleading. "Rosie, girl. My sweet, sweet _flower_ \--" and it makes Carver's teeth grind hard together.

He goes in. The man is halfway to his knees, hands out in appeal, but he straightens when he sees Carver. 

"Who in the void are _you_?"

The man is shorter than him. That's the first thing he notices. He's short and blond, in a workman's dun shirt and trou, hair pulled back in a tail and a rough scruff on his face that makes Carver's neat-trimmed beard seem practically Orlesian. He looks like any other Starkhaven crafter, but he glares at Carver with all a husband's righteous indignation.

Rosie rolls her eyes to the ceiling. "Andraste have _mercy_." She shakes her head. "Carver, love, now's a bad time."

She has a mug hefted in one hand, and there's shards of broken crockery all across the floor. Carver gives her an incredulous look. "Yeah, I can see that."

"This your fancy-man, then?" The man's ruddy complexion has darkened to a heavy red. "Your pretty templar?" He says it with such disgust it pulls Carver's shoulders back, spine gone rigid with irritation.

Rosie makes such a noise. " _Olly_. This is Knight Lieutenant Carver. Carver," and she gestures wearily at him with the mug. "My husband, Olly Monroe."

Olly doesn't offer his hand and neither does Carver. They just glare at one another across the debris-strewn floor until Rosie throws her hands up in disgust.

"Stop that, you rogues. Ye'll not fight in my kitchen."

"You know I'd fight any man for you, my treasure," Olly says, sickly sweet, and Carver snorts because, well. This guy? Even if he's got a knife Carver's absolutely sure he can take him. Anyway, there's no way Rosie could possibly be impressed by such an obvious, pathetic display of--

"I know, love," she says, and the way she says it has Carver staring at her. No way. No _fucking way_.

" _Rosie_ ," he says, and she sighs, and in that sigh he can hear it. Maker, he knows her too well now to miss it.

She sets the cup down, and points toward the front door. "Olly, go see to the children. Mind me, now," she adds in a no-nonsense tone when he hesitates.

The man casts a hot glare Carver's way, and then shoves past him to bang the front door open and closed.

Carver winces. Rosie hates banging. He wonders if this is why.

But she's leaned up against the kitchen workbench, hands flat on the scored wood, and the look on her face is _pitying_.

Carver hates it. He's always hated that.

"Carver, love," she says, and he would interrupt her, tell her not to make it easy for him, but it's not worth it. "You should go."

He should. But. "Maura doesn't think he's really her father," he says, because Rosie should know that.

Rosie sighs, a long drawn-out sound. "She doesn't remember him." And she shakes her head. "She loves you too much. I never should have let her."

Carver doesn't know what to do with that. Instead he shuffles the chunk of lamb out from under his elbow, sets it on the table. "You're taking him back," he says, knowing it's true, and her rueful look confirms it.

"He's my husband," she says, as though it's a conclusion foregone.

"I could be your husband," Carver argues, knowing it for fruitless, but he needs to tell her.

The sad shake of her head is more than enough, but she says, "Templars make bad husbands," and it doesn't break his heart. Maybe it should but it _doesn't_. She goes on, "You can't be here when I need you. If there was a bairn," and she sighs so heavy it makes him want, despite everything, to put his arms around her.

He doesn't. "I'd do everything for you, if there was."

She flattens a hand to her waist, not looking up. "You'd do your best, love. But you Templars and your duty." She sounds bitter, and he doesn't know what to do with it.

But. Here, at the end, there's only a few things he _can_ do that won't make him the kind of arsehole he's never wanted to be. He reaches into his purse, ignores the now-pointless ring, and fishes out some coin. He sets it on the table beside the cloth-wrapped meat, the heavy thud of it so final.

"Roly needs new shoes," he says, "and Maura's nameday's coming up. Get her something nice." _Tell her it's from me,_ he thinks but can't say.

Rosie doesn't move, just sighs, face gone still and so weary. "You're a good boy, Carver."

 _Boy._ Well, that's it, isn't it? 

He nods and leaves out through the yard, not willing to bear the gloating of Rosie's husband, and heads back to the barracks, his mind already making itself up.

He catches Tristram in his office, bowed over reports, and the Knight Captain looks surprised to see him. "Butcher? Don't you have the night off?"

Carver takes a breath, does his best to look competent and certain and not like ... like he's wasted money on a ring he's never going to need. "Is that transfer still up for grabs?"

For a moment Tristram just stares at him. Then he grins, teeth flashing white against his lip. " _Finally_. You took your sweet time."

"Glad to be rid of me, ser?" Carver asks, unable to help himself.

"Sick of Cullen's sad begging for you back, more like," Tristram says, piling his paperwork up on one side to clear space for a fresh parchment. "Kirkwall deserves your sorry face. I'll be expecting gossip," he adds, scrawling away with his pen. "Agatha's bloody useless at it. All she ever sends is recruitment numbers and promotions, nothing _juicy_." He signs the paper with a flourish and hands it over.

Carver knows what's on it without looking, but he looks anyway. 

_To Callion MacHansen, Commander of the Order of Knights Templar in Starkhaven. I recommend Knight Lieutenant Carver for transfer to the Order stronghold in Kirkwall, with my commendation. He can only do you proud, ser, you have my word. Your Captain, Tristram MacFarris._

It's better than he expected. "Thank-you, ser," he says, meaning it more than he can express.

Tristram waves a hand dismissively. "Don't thank me. Just be the man I've made of you, little brother, and try to _live_ a bit, for once. Then we're square." He pulls a stern face, but Carver knows him better now than to worry about it. "Now I have to break in a new Lieutenant. Faugh! Any thoughts?"

He gestures to the chair opposite and Carver sinks into it, so grateful he can't ever say. "Knight Corporal Wilfred has seniority, ser."

Tristram grimaces horribly. "Aye, but I hate his smarmy _face_."

Carver laughs. He feels ... good about this. Shouldn't he feel worse?

But he doesn't. "Well, ser," he starts, hunkering down over the desk, knowing how long a night this might become. "I have some suggestions."

Tristram listens, argues, breaks out the good brandy and, honestly, Carver feels okay. Choice made, right? Maybe everything will work out for the best.


	32. Chapter 32

The docks stink of Kirkwall and Carver knows he's home. _Kirkwall_ , of all, not Lothering or anyplace before. He steps onto the planks and breathes it in. Kirkwall smells of muck and sea and rot, and it's home.

 _Bethany would have hated it here._ Or loved it here. He'll never know.

There's a pale-faced knight on the steps he doesn't recognise. She salutes. "Knight Lieutenant. Ser Theirald, to serve you."

"Knight Lieutenant Carver," he tells her. "We made good time. I'm a day early."

She summons a pair of unfamiliar recruits to manage his trunk, and directs him through the guard up the steps to the Gallows proper. It's busy, bustling even, peppered with familiar faces. He sees Ser Ellis, Knight _Corporal_ Stesha, Ser Wertold -- who ducks off no doubt to gossip -- and Hugh, looming suddenly from a doorway.

"Hawke!" He offers a salute and then a fist. 

Carver knocks gauntlets with him. "Ser Hugh."

"Barker's gunna blow a pipe," Hugh says, falling in easily. "He's not expecting you until tomorrow."

 _Barker_. Bloody hell, Carver can't wait to see him. "Bet he's got my whole schedule mapped out."

" _All_ our schedules," Hugh groans. "They made that toff bastard a Knight Corporal, you know."

Carver hadn't. That's ... fantastic. "Then that's 'Knight Corporal Toff Bastard' to you, ser knight."

The roll of Hugh's eyes is familiar and so fucking welcome. "As you say, ser. Here, I've got night patrols this rotation, but we'll do drinks soon, all right?"

"Just try and stop me," Carver says, grinning, and Hugh slaps him on the shoulder with a clang.

"Wouldn't dare to, ser!" And he's off, winking at Ser Thierald as he goes.

Bloody Hugh. Ugh, he hasn't changed at all, and Carver is inexplicably pleased to see it.

Ser Theirald is waiting politely, so he nods to her. "After you, ser knight."

He makes it almost all the way to quarters before--

"Hullo, Knight Lieutenant." She's just the same, except her _hair_ , and he just stares at her for a heartbeat. "Welcome back to the Gallows."

"Ser Ruvena. You look good."

She grins, practically ladylike with her neat crown of braids. "You've got a beard, ser."

Is that good or bad? "And?"

"And it's good to see you, ser," she says, with that grin. "Hey, Thierald. Got out of courtyard duty, I see."

Theirald looks _embarrassed_. "The Knight Lieutenant--"

"I'm sure you'll get right back to it once Hawke's settled in." She says it so archly, and Carver can't help his smirk at how red Theirald goes

"Yes, ser."

She makes a shooing gesture. "Then get on with you. No dawdling." And she grins past Thierald's shoulder, that same grin. Fuck, Carver's _missed_ her, how could he have forgotten?

Thierald shows him to his quarters, and they're fucking _palatial_. He doesn't rate a private bath, but his room has a blessed _window_ , and his bed is a real _bed_ , and he's got an armor stand and a desk and a fireplace. Holy crap.

The recruits stow his trunk and bunk off, and then it's just Carver and Thierald, who looks eager to assist in anything, but he doesn't need her.

"Thank-you, Ser Thierald. You can get back to the courtyard, before Ser Ruvena takes it into her head to come looking for you."

She hesitates, clearly torn between obedience and reluctance to waste her day standing in the sun. "If you need anything, ser," she offers, but he shakes his head.

"I know my way around. You're dismissed."

And then. He opens his trunk, pulls out the things that need laundering, the things he'll get a Tranquil to mend for him, and his shaving mirror. His reflection is ... okay. He combs his hair, checks his teeth, decides his beard is neat enough to be presentable, and heads back out.

Alistair's on duty outside Cullen's office. He does a fabulous double-take when Carver stops in front of him, and then he salutes, not quite as snappy as Carver would like but pretty good all the same. "Ser Carver! Welcome home."

The knight on the other side gives both of them a dubious look she doesn't bother to hide, and Carver ignores her because he doesn't know what that's about and, anyway, he doesn't know _her_. "Thank-you, Recruit. I trust you've been behaving yourself." 

He doesn't trust in it at all, and Alistair's face gives him away completely, a ruddy mess of embarrassment and sheepishness. "Oh, you don't want to know about that. I bet you want to see the Knight Captain. Can I announce you?"

As if it's a privilege. Carver nods, squaring his shoulders. "Please."

Alistair knocks, waits for a response, and then he cracks the door. "Knight Captain? Knight Lieutenant Carver to see you."

The silence from inside makes Carver's gut shrivel, but then he hears (in _that_ voice, holy Andraste, how he's waited for this moment, for so long) his Captain say, "Please, show him in."

He goes, closing the door behind him, fussing with it a bit (if he's honest with himself), drawing out the moment before he looks up, and--

"Ser Carver," Cullen says. He's standing behind his desk, palms planted on the edge of it, and his face ... Maker, Carver had _forgotten_. His Captain, just as tired and worn and all-the-same welcoming and perfectly _his Captain_. He looks so ... so exactly as Carver left him, as if the last two-and-a-bit years had never happened.

Carver clears his throat to say, "Knight Captain," and it feels _so right_. He salutes, as deep and sincere as he knows how, and Cullen salutes him back, as if, as if he _means_ it, and then he comes out from behind his desk to grip Carver hard at the shoulder. 

"Knight Lieutenant. It is _good_ to see you again." And then he steps back, hands going wide and loose for a moment before he draws them back in to prop on his hips. "I nearly didn't recognise you."

Carver lifts a hand to his chin, scrubbing his gauntleted fingers through the hair there. "You don't like the beard, ser?"

"It suits you. But I had expected to see more of your jaw, I suppose." He shakes his head, eyes cutting up all honey-brown warmth to rake over Carver again. "It's unexpected."

"If you don't like it, ser, I'll shave it off." He'd only kept it because, well, it took less work of a morning, and Rosie had liked it. Rosie, who hadn't liked him enough in the end. "No trouble."

"You are free to do as you like with your face," Cullen says, mouth twitching. "I ... had not thought to see you so soon. Do not misunderstand me, I am very glad to have you back," he says, as though Carver didn't know how he's been pestering Tristram all this time for Carver home again. "But your timing throws my schedule for you out of true."

Ah. Carver grins. "I'm glad to be back, ser. If I may," he adds, feeling confident and, well, maybe carrying a little of the cheekiness Tristram allowed back to the Gallows with him, "I should probably take the day off. If you have nothing for me. Can't go messing up your schedules, ser."

Cullen smiles and it strikes Carver hard. He looks so lighthearted. Carver's not sure if he's ever seen that from him before. "I think it would be best, Knight Lieutenant. Time to settle in, see your friends, perhaps."

"I'd like that. If you have no need of me, ser."

"Take the day for yourself, then," Cullen says, and his voice is soft enough that Carver thinks ... but not now, later, when he has _time_ for it. For now -- "You look well, Hawke."

Cullen looks tired, as always, but still _so good_ and Carver cannot lie to him, not anymore. "You too, ser."

Cullen twists his chin up and to the side, eyeing Carver across the sharp rise of his cheek. "I think I must have misremembered your stature."

It's impossible not to grin at him. "Am I taller, ser?"

"Perhaps ... broader in the shoulders. It seems Starkhaven has agreed with you."

It sounds very nearly like a question, and Carver breathes out, thinking over how to answer it and mean every word. "It was better than I expected. But ... without you, ser, it was pretty barren."

If Cullen gets it he doesn't let it show. All he does is nod, all solemnly himself, and then he says, "As was the Gallows, without you."

Maker. That means what he thinks it does, it _has_ to. Still, he has no idea what to do with it here, now, with the bustle of mid-afternoon outside the door. 

So he salutes Cullen Fereldan-style, and tries to put everything he has into the words, "I'm glad to be back with you again, ser."

"I am glad to have you," Cullen says, not quite smiling but pleased all the same.

And that's it. Carver walks out, tips a goodbye to Alistair, and goes back to his quarters to change out of his uniform into something comfortable.

Cullen looked so ... but maybe ... still, he will, he tells himself, he fucking _will_.

 _Give it time._ Now he's home, they have all the time in the world.

And he _is_ home, so there's someone he needs to see.

* * *

Gamlen is grim as he opens the door, but when he recognises Carver his face lights up in a way Carver hadn't thought he'd ever be pleased about.

"Carver!" he says, his hands coming up to grip Carver's face. "My _boy_! Good to see you!"

Carver grips his uncle's shoulder, shakes him a little. "Hullo, uncle. You busy tonight?"

"Not too busy for you, son. Come in."

The house is so sad. Carver remembers how much he had hated it, and remembers also how much he had always meant to make more of it, and the thought that _his uncle_ is still living in this awful squalor makes him feel low. Gamlen, for all he is, deserves better. He's Carver's favourite uncle, his only uncle, and Garrett has left him to rot alone like this? In the place they rotted in themselves, when Gamlen was good enough to take them in?

At the time Carver had been so angry, so mad at Gamlen for losing things he thought had been his mother's birthright, but now? Gamlen is still here, older and just as bitter and still Carver's uncle, still family.

Gamlen pours him a drink, some nasty rotgut that Carver is now man enough to swallow without a grimace. Carver drinks it down, answers Gamlen's gossipy questions: no he is not married, no he has no children, no he has no intention, but _yes_ he's a Knight Lieutenant now, and yes he has got himself a tasty little pay-rise.

He grins, touches his uncle's arm, and says, "Let me take you out, uncle. Buy you dinner and drinks?"

Gamlen lets him, because he's Gamlen, and introduces him to a mystery-meat-in-a-trencher place Carver would never have tried without the advice, and the food is _good_ ... for Lowtown, anyway. They eat up, talk nonsense, and Carver takes Gamlen to the Hanged Man after because, well, where else?

"Your brother," Gamlen says, and Carver braces himself for whatever wonderful thing Garrett has done now, "found someone for me. My daughter." And when Carver doesn't respond at once Gamlen adds, "Your cousin. Charade, her name is. Maker, I didn't even know about her." 

He seems bewildered by this, and strangely pleased, and Carver tops up their cups from the jug, too confused to say anything.

"She looks like her mother, and _my_ mother, and a little bit like you," Gamlen says, looking down as he does, and Carver thinks, _Oh_. A cousin. Another cousin, and not the cousin who's a mage and the Hero of Ferelden but just _normal_ , like him.

"Congratulations," he says, and the shyly proud look on Gamlen's face makes him ache because ... he's pretty sure neither of his parents ever looked that way about _him_. "What's she like?"

Gamlen tells him that Charade is brave and skillful and clever-- "And beautiful, my boy, you don't even know. So beautiful," and he trails off, eyes gone soft in a way that ... Carver's glad. For Gamlen, but also for himself. A beautiful cousin. An archer, and all of it she did herself, with no-one to help her, no-one to see to her, no-one to stand in her way.

Carver fumbles some coins out of his purse. "Here," he says, pressing them into Gamlen's hand. "For my cousin. And for you, Uncle."

Gamlen grins at him, hugs an arm around his shoulders. "You're a _good boy,_ Carver. Your mother ... she'd be so proud of you. She always was, you know?"

Things get maudlin after that, the two of them waxing lyrical about Carver's mother, and Gamlen's poor dead wife, and Bethany, in the end.

"I wish I'd met her," Gamlen admits, well in his cups. "Never knew what I'd say to a niece, but now... Oh, the Amell girls get all the good looks in this family, my boy. Revka was a stunner, you know. Poor bloody Revka. But we," he says, with all the earnest wisdom of intoxication, "have to rely on charm."

Carver grins, hugely entertained. "Oh? I don't know if I know how to charm anyone, uncle. You gonna teach me?"

Gamlen gives him a sour look. "Ask your brother. He's a consummate _artist_."

And Carver can't argue with that.

* * *

When he gets home (the Gallows, so much 'home' now that he can't think of anywhere else that deserves the name) he finds Barker sitting on his bed. Barker, still so _Barker_ but with the thick pelt of a moustache veiling his upper lip and Caver just ... Maker's _breath_ , that moustache knocks him for six. Paxley would have envied it. Paxley always had such terrible taste.

"Ser," Barker says, standing and looking somewhere between glad and pissed off. Or maybe pissed off that he's glad. Carver can't tell, too busy staring at his moustache. "You're back."

"And you're here." Carver eyes Barker, who (moustache aside) looks almost naked in his shirt and trou, robeless and armourless and smaller than Carver remembered. "Congratulations, Knight Corporal."

Barker blinks at him, a dark flush coming up in his cheeks beneath the more even darkness of his skin. "And to you, Knight Lieutenant." Then he ruins it by frowning. "I missed your arrival, today. I regret that."

"Nothing to regret," Carver says, opening up his trunk to pull out a bottle of wine fortuitously unbroken. "Fancy a drink?"

Barker seems torn. Right, he's still mad. Carver huffs, fixing him with a look he hopes comes across as 'put upon'.

"You mad I didn't come see you?"

And there, now he looks embarrassed. Maybe because he _is_ mad, and dislikes being found out. "I'd have thought ... but I suppose we were never close."

It's so _stupid_. "You're one of the best friends I've ever had," Carver admits, not really happy to say it but meaning it all the same.

"I should be honoured to be considered one of the best of so many," Barker says, chagrined it seems.

"Not so many." Carver draws his belt-knife to cut the wax around the cork of the bottle, partly because, hey wine, and partly to avoid looking Barker in the eye. "I've never had many I'd call 'friend'." Just Ruvena and poor Paxley, Barker and Hugh, Isabela and Merrill. Tristram? And Fenris, he thinks, though in Fenris' case ... maybe they were never friends. "Could count you all on two hands with fingers to spare."

Barker looks up, dark eyes catching the light. "Then I am _well_ honoured to be counted." He squares his shoulders, frowning at the wine bottle. "Do you have cups for that, or are we necking it from the bottle?"

Carver shrugs. "Nothing so fancy as _cups_ here, Barker," and he tips the bottle up to take a gulp before passing it over. "You got gossip for me? Gotta be something juicy going on. I've been gone for _years_."

The familiar sound of his snort is too welcome. Barker takes the bottle and pulls from it, wiping his mouth on his wrist. "The recruits are _abominable_. Ser Ruvena has done her best," and he flushes again, for no reason Carver can guess, "but still, it's like herding geese. Or cats."

"No point in herding cats. Geese at least are _useful_." Carver sinks onto the bed to take off his boots, and Barker sits himself down, still holding the bottle. "So. Which of our geese lay the best eggs?"

Barker shakes his head, mouth curving just a little as he takes another sip. "Better you work that out for yourself, ser. Fresh eyes, and all." He hesitates, licking the wine from his lips, his eyes following the motion of Carver's hands. "I'd be grateful to hear your opinion of them, when you have time."

"Now I'm back for good we've all the time in the world," Carver tells him, putting out a hand, and Barker smiles as he offers up the bottle, as if he really is happy to see him, despite it all.

For a moment he thinks Barker might say something embarrassing, but then he nods, closing his eyes. "Good wine, ser," he says.

Carver grins. "Good company, too."

Barker glances up. "The best," he says, "though, Hawke, that _beard_ ," and Carver laughs, so glad to have finally come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carver's forgotten a few friends, it seems. Sad.


	33. Chapter 33

The Gallows hasn't changed a bit, but maybe Carver has. Breakfast is .... different. No pastries, no fried tomato, no vegetable hash stuffed in a roll. The porridge is heavy and flaked with seaweed, and Carver grimaces over it before he recalls himself. But he has no right to disdain a good hot breakfast, so he takes it and tries not to miss the delicate fruit rolls and cream gravies of Starkhaven. 

The officers table is packed with men and women he doesn't really know, but there's Rochard, there's Nottely, there's -- holy hells -- _Agatha_ , lifting her cup to welcome him in. "Knight Lieutenant," she says, tipping her head toward the space on the bench at her side. "Good to see you, ser."

"You too, Knight Corporal," he says, and then he thinks -- she's so _competent_. How has it taken so long for her to be promoted up through the ranks?

She nods to him, mouth curling, and says, "Cullen has you in mind for the practice yard."

For a moment Carver thinks she means _he_ needs the practice, but then ... no, that's not it. "All right."

Rochard smirks, tapping his spoon against the rim of Carver's plate. "You _could_ argue, if you wanted something better."

"Minding the yard was good enough for _you_ ," Carver shoots back, pleased he now has leave to sass Rochard a little, but Rochard shrugs up a shoulder, clearly unconcerned.

"I liked it. But now, no. The recruits," he sighs, smoothing a finger over his lip, "are very dull. Duller by the day."

"You could make something of them," Agatha says, hunched over her breakfast. "If you wanted."

"I have made enough of enough recruits in my time to need no further opportunity." Rochard grins, eyes cutting up sly to catch Carver's. "Some of them have made out very well for themselves."

Was that a compliment? Carver can't tell. Still, he feels well toward Rochard, who has never dealt him ill in anything that mattered, for all his endless Orlesian amusement at Carver's expense. "I'll make something of them," he says, trying to sound sure about it. Agatha glances up, spoon paused halfway to her mouth. Carver works his shoulders, definitely _not_ self-conscious before these two. "I'll work out all their kinks."

"Ah, how fortunate our younglings," Rochard murmurs, eyes glittering, "to have so attentive a master."

Agatha clears her throat. "You'll do fine, ser."

When he's done with breakfast Carver heads over to see his Captain, and finds Cullen in his office, fully uniformed and armoured but still sipping tea out of a fragile bit of Nevarran china, all soft and sleepy about the eyes.

"Ser. Heard you wanted me for the practice yard."

Cullen nods, blinking away his night-fugue. "For many things, but the yard and the apprentice quarters are yours now, if you want them. Nottely and Damia will manage the Duty Lieutenant's office, but I'll expect you to step in should they require relief. Does that sound acceptable to you?"

"Yes, ser." But he hesitates, because-- "No-one really wants the apprentices, anyway."

"There are those who _do_ , but I find them mostly ... inappropriate." His grimace isn't over the tea. "I trust you to be fair with them. And, of course, you have always been good with the mages. Senior Enchanter Timony will be your counterpart. Can you work with him?"

Timony's all right. Carver nods. "I think so, ser."

"Good. Then, as I know you have no other pressing duties," and he smiles a very little, "will you come with me to the yard? Knight Corporal Barker has requested your opinion of our juniors."

"Well, ser, can't disappoint our Barks," Carver says, and he certainly doesn't miss Cullen's amused wince.

They go down together, Carver falling in at Cullen's shoulder so easy it's like he never left.

The yard is busy already, recruits and junior knights drilling under Barker's instruction, though it's Ruvena who's doing most of the shouting. All of it, really, chewing out the ones who need it while Barker stands back, offering a little praise where it's warranted. They've got a good rhythm going and Carver is half impressed and half envious of how well they work together. 

But.

“Go,” Cullen says, mouth curving into something well-missed and familiar. “See what you can make of them.”

For his Captain, Carver does.

Barker gives a salute, and Carver tips him back a nod before heading into the fray. The recruits don’t notice, not yet acclimatised to the pattern of knights that train them. To them he’s just another officer, another Lieutenant looking them over to find who’s wanting. The junior knights, though, they startle, and more than one flubs a strike because they’re too interested in _him_ , and Carver counts it against them, though he knows it’s unfair.

This one is holding his shield too high, and Carver taps the top of it, encouraging it down. “Hold _here_. Covers more of you, that way,” and the boy does, with a wrench of his mouth that makes Carver wonder if he needs a good run around the grounds to cool him off. Another is making wild strikes, too wide and too expressive, and Carver shakes his head. “It’s not a spectacle,” he says, low and quiet. The knight makes a face, focusses, and tries again, but it’s still too wild. “Calm your tits,” Carver growls, “keep it the fuck together. Do what you need to, not what you think’s gunna look good. No-one’s counting points.”

It make very little difference; the boy seems to be trying but he’s no good, and Carver loses interest because … well.

There’s one who’s okay. Not just okay, she’s fucking _promising_ , but she too is striking too broad and too wild, though there’s a _weight_ behind her strikes that makes him smile. Good and _solid_ she is, and he studies her a bit before stepping up to her.

“You,” he says, and maybe it’s a bit too gruff because she _glares_ at him, hot as a fucking furnace in summer. “What’s your name?”

“Maglene,” she says, and then she makes a show of glancing at his armour. “Knight Lieutenant,” she adds, and it’s insubordinate as shit but Carver can’t help his grin.

“All right, Ser Maglene. Show me that thrust again.”

She ought to show him against the dummy at her right, but instead she steps off and throws the thrust at _him_ ; he sidesteps, smacks the blade of her practice sword wide with the back of his gauntlet, and fuck she’s _peppery_ , and it’s _magnificent_ , honestly.

She pulls back, glares at him and, fuck, she looks like she’s ready to take a penance for her sins but won’t apologise and that, if nothing else, makes him warm toward her.

“Nice. But no good. You’re too obvious. Lemme show you how it’s done.”

He holds up a hand and one of the recruits puts a practice-sword in it -- they’re good that way, he thinks, no slacking -- and when he holds out his other there’s a wooden shield for him too. The weight’s not quite right, and he prefers a two-hander, of course, but these are enough for what he wants so he nods thanks before hefting the things and setting his feet. “Spar with me, Ser Maglene.”

“Of course, Knight Lieutenant,” she says, but her eyes ought to burn him and, oh, that’s good, that’s fucking _good_.

She takes her time, looking him over, but she’s too eager, strikes too soon, and he parries and steps back. This seems to infuriate her; she comes in again, a good thrust, but he can see it before she throws it, and he knocks it aside too easily. “Come on, Ser Maglene. You’ve got better, don’t you?”

She bares her teeth; it is again obvious what she means to do, so when she comes in he catches her sword and twists it out of her hand before slamming her to the ground with his shield. She lands well, already rolling away, but he taps the swell of her breastplate with the wooden tip of his sword and shakes his head.

“Dead, Ser Maglene. But pretty good, anyway.” He drops the sword, offers her his hand, and for a moment he thinks she might spit at him but instead she accepts the help, and then, shockingly, she makes a small but significant bow.

“Yours, Knight Lieutenant.” 

There’s an Orlesian tint to her words, and something very Orlesian in her scowl, but Carver thinks she’s by far the best of the lot so he grins at her, which might be what makes that scowl falter but might not. “You’re _good_. Might be great, one day. Not today, though.” Still, when she tries to pull her hand away he holds on to it, fixing her with a Look that would have made his mother proud, he thinks. “Reckon I could help with that.”

Her glare is fucking _brutal_ , dark brows coming down hard over her small dark eyes. “Would you be _so kind_ , ser?” Nasty, that is, but nasty kinda suits her.

“Depends how early you wanna get up,” he says, and she makes such a face he wants to laugh. “I’ll be out here at dawn, Ser Maglene. If you _don’t_ show, guess I’ll have to find someone else to help me take the edge off.”

Oh, her face is _priceless_. Maker, she’d eat his fucking heart if she had a chance. Or half of one. _Good,_ he thinks, and he surrenders his arms and rejoins the Knight Captain at the edge of the grounds.

Cullen isn’t quite smiling but there’s that twist to his mouth that Carver has missed like the _sun_ , and when he jerks his head Carver goes to him. “All right, ser?”

“Very much so. But, if you will, tell me what you think of our juniors.”

‘Our’, and Carver sucks in a breath, giddy with how good it feels to be _home_. “They’re a bit shit, ser. But that Maglene’s all right. Rough, still, but … she’s got the stones for it, at least.”

Cullen casts him an amused glance. “Ser Maglene is … raw, but there is potential, there. She reminds me a young knight I once had under my care, full of substance but lacking discipline.”

It’s a tease, Carver’s pretty sure. “You beat her into shape, though, that knight. Right?”

“He turned out to be everything I hoped for,” Cullen says, cutting Carver a look that could only be called fond. Right. Well, that’s obvious enough.

“Hope he made you proud, ser.”

Cullen lifts his chin, and it is subtle but Carver catches the warmth in the curve of his mouth. “He continues to do so. A valuable investment, all things considered.” And then he glances over, breaking into a far less subtle smile. “Will you dine with me, Hawke?”

Carver lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Tonight, ser?”

“Tonight, yes. Please, if you would.”

“At your command, ser.” He means it well, but Cullen looks troubled, brow drawing down, so Carver lifts a hand to touch Cullen’s gauntlet, bold as can be. “I’d like it.”

“Very well.” Cullen stops, nods, and then gestures broadly with one hand. “Then, as you will, Knight Lieutenant.”

Carver cuts him a salute, Fereldan-style because it feels right. “Knight Captain.”

He doesn’t watch Cullen go, but remains aware of him as he strides off down the corridor until he vanishes behind a corner, and something that he had tried to forget rises warm in his chest. His Knight Captain, so strong and so sure, still.

Carver won’t fail him, no matter what.

* * *

That dinner turns into two, into three, and then Carver finds himself with a standing invitation to spend every second evening in Cullen's chambers. The evenings wind out late. Cullen is informal with him then, sometimes giddy with the after-effects of his lyrium ration.

"I used to save them up," he says one evening, contemplating the blue-streaked glass of a nearly empty phial. "Go without for days, and then take them all at once. It was ... certainly intense."

Carver frowns. "Isn't that dangerous, ser?"

"Quite," Cullen agrees. He shakes his head. "I never should have. I was reckless, then."

Carver can't imagine anyone less reckless and says so.

"That was before," and his Knight Captain's smile is a small, rueful thing. "I don't think I fully appreciated the risks. Of course, when the Blight came things were made somewhat clearer."

"Yeah." Carver hesitates, watching the brightness of lyrium gather in the bottom of the glass. "It did that all right. I mean, before then all I cared about was girls and harvest."

Cullen smiles, eyes flickering up. "Were there many girls, then?"

"There was one." He shrugs, embarrassed in the face of Cullen's amused interest. "I mean, I'm not my brother."

"What was her name?"

"Polly," Carver says, "but we called her Peaches." He closes his eyes for a moment to picture her. All he can summon are vague memories of sunburnt skin and red-gold hair and freckles, the rest of it gone to dust.

"And you loved her?"

It makes him snort. "I was sweet on her, is all. Anyway, she fancied Garrett. All the girls fancied Garrett. Then he grew that beard and half their mothers fancied him too."

Cullen bites his lip, clearly trying not to smile. "Is that why you grew yours? To impress lonely housewives?"

Was it? "Maybe." And when Cullen just raises his eyebrows he says, "I had a girl, in Starkhaven. A woman. She liked it." Liked the scratch of it against her breast, she said, but Carver keeps that to himself. "Didn't love her, either," he adds, in case Cullen asks.

But Cullen doesn't look exactly pleased by this. "You make it sound easy. As if it cost you nothing to leave her behind."

"Wasn't anything to leave, by then. We were already done."

And maybe he doesn't quite keep the regret out of his voice, because Cullen leans forward, hand twitching on the table as if he cannot keep it still. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not." It's true, he realises. He's not sorry at all, not if he gets all this instead. "Ser, I came _home_."

Cullen's smile is warm enough to melt the old regrets, turning Carver's insides to soft taffy. "With a promotion and a beard," he says, and Carver laughs, can't help himself.

"You hate the beard," he snickers, watching Cullen wrinkle his nose and shake his head. "No, ser, you do. You can say so."

"No, no. It is a very fine beard, I'm sure."

"And you _hate_ it," Carver insists.

Cullen is stoic for all of a heartbeat before he crumbles. "It ages you, Hawke. This _man_ you are now ... I confess I miss my smooth-cheeked recruit."

How sincere he is, with that soft edge to his mouth. "Command me to shave it and I will," Carver says, catching Cullen's eye and holding it.

The moment hangs between them, warm and firelit. Carver sees the bob of Cullen's throat as he swallows, and he wonders if Cullen's mouth is dry. "Ser Carver," Cullen says, low and even, "I would have you shave your face."

"Done, ser." He pushes himself up, conscious of the way Cullen's eyes track him to his feet. "Got a razor?"

Cullen follows him into the bathing chamber, touches the glyph that heats his water, unwraps his shaving kit and offers it up like a tithe. "There is everything you should need." He hovers, watching, and when Carver drags a wet cloth over his face Cullen frowns.

"What?" Carver makes a broad gesture. "Am I not doing it right?"

"Not the way that I--" but Cullen checks himself, makes a fist of one hand only to open it up and gesture broadly. "Did your father not teach you to shave?"

"My father was dead by the time I needed teaching. Garrett showed me."

Cullen makes a face, clearly embarrassed. "Forgive me, but I don't think he showed you the best way." Which makes sense, Garrett being all over beard by then. Maybe Garrett's no good at shaving. Wouldn't that be something?

So Carver says, "You gunna show me how, ser?" And Cullen hesitates, but only for a heartbeat. 

"If you trust me, my knight," he says, and it isn't until he has the cloth in hand, has soaked it and holds it up to Carver's face that Carver gets it. Cullen means to shave him.

Oh. Well. He settles against the rim of the tub and tips his chin up. "Always, ser."

The cloth is hot on his skin. Cullen spreads it over carefully, covering every part of Carver's beard, and then he holds it there, letting the hair soak up moisture. Carver can do nothing but look at him as he does it, can only hold still and wait as Cullen takes up his brush and lathers the soap. Cullen does not meet his eye as he peels the cloth away, nor when he circles the brush-bristles into the hair of Carver's chin, up his cheeks, down the stretch of his throat, but Carver watches him, fixated on his face. They've never been so close, never so intimate, and when Cullen raises the blade he _does_ look up, catches Carver's eye long enough that it can't, truly, be nothing.

"I should strop this," he says, and Carver nods, and waits impatiently as Cullen pulls out the strop and draws the blade along it a few times each way.

Then. 

The blade is sharp and Cullen handles it so surely, his fingers coming up under Carver's jaw to hold him just so. Carver bares his throat, feeling his nerves shorten at the kiss of steel against it. But he does trust Cullen, and Cullen is so intent. Carver holds himself still, lets Cullen tilt him for access, tries to breathe evenly because ... because Cullen is _touching_ him, and he feels everything in him fire at the small pressure Cullen places on him.

He takes the razor over Carver's cheek, eyes fixed. Carver can hardly bear the blade on his skin, it is so delicate. He tries not to breathe too deep, tries not to stiffen, feels himself grow warm and full in his trousers as Cullen makes his way through the thickness of hair, wipes the blade clean again.

It feels like forever before he is done. He checks Carver's skin with his fingers, finds a patch that needs tending and attends to it, and then removes the blade, his eyes shuttered, to clean it and set it aside, before wiping Carver over with the cloth and setting that aside too. There's thick cool lotion then, that smells of Cullen -- mercy, this is _Cullen's_ scent, smoothed now over Carver's jaw, over his cheeks, down his neck. Carver can't bear it, he can't, he really just _wants_ , and Cullen still won't look at him, not in his eye even as those steady fingers press firm and possessive against him.

It's an agony, but such a sweet one. Cullen seems done but his hand lingers and Carver thinks, _Now, now, now you should kiss me, please ser._

But Cullen doesn't. He looks up, still fingering the smoothness of Carver's face, and his eyes are dark in the dim wash-room. " _There_ you are," he says, wiping a bit of what's probably soap from the corner of Carver's mouth, coming up after to touch the lobe of Carver's ear. "Ser Carver."

"My Captain," Carver breathes, because if Cullen doesn't kiss him now then he thinks Cullen might _never_ , and he's about to reach up to press his hand to Cullen's chest when Cullen pulls away, clearing his throat.

"We're done, then," he murmurs, and his pupils have gone wide in the low light, huge black things that make Carver want him like water.

And then he steps away, backing out into the main room, and Carver ... what? No. No, he can't just...

He lurches up off the edge of the bath, pursuing Cullen like a hungry hound. "What? Is that _it_?"

Cullen backs up, staring at him as though he's _dangerous_ , and Carver feels so ... so _tricked_. That should have been ... surely that was exactly how it felt. Surely.

"What more would you have of me?" Cullen asks, colour gone high in his cheeks, and Carver just ... can't, anymore.

"Everything," he says, and the flare of Cullen's eyes almost makes him back down, but no, not now, not after everything. " _Ser_. Whatever you've got for me. I want it." He reaches out, fingers curling into the cloth of Cullen's shirt, and he shouldn't, this is his _Captain_ , he should be _respectful_. But if Cullen doesn't want him ... what have they been _doing_ all this time? "Please, ser, don't you want?"

Cullen just _stares_ at him, and then, so gentle it's like watching frost melt, Carver sees his expression change into something wretched, and when he speaks his voice has gone low and quiet. "You must know by now how I do."

Oh. _Oh_. Carver thinks, _Then how could you just walk away?_ but he doesn't say it, just coils his hand up in the cloth of Cullen's shirt. "Ser. _Cullen_. Why not, then?"

Cullen breathes out, heavy and remorseful. "It is ill-advised."

"I know." He does, really, knows exactly how ill-advised, how foolish this is. How very much against the rules (and how Cullen sticks to the rules). But. "I'm not a recruit anymore."

The curve of Cullen's mouth is so sweet. "Most certainly not. But. This is not a thing to rush into without thought--"

"You reckon I haven't thought about this?" How could Cullen believe that? " _Ser_. I've thought about this a _lot_." But Cullen looks so lost and Carver has to be specific. He _has_ to. "Thought about you. Thought about, about things I could do for you."

"I would not profane you so," Cullen says and it makes no sense.

"Profane me?"

"By making demands," and Cullen looks so embarrassed, almost ashamed of himself even as he lifts a hand to smooth down Carver's chest. "Of your flesh."

Oh. Well, in that case. "I want that, you know." Carver swallows, not sure how to say it, not to _Cullen_. "You. Making demands of me."

Cullen squeezes his eyes shut, breathing out hard. " _Hawke._ That you would. And ... of we two, I am your superior, and I must be the one to have restraint." He takes a breath that seems to hurt him. But he shakes his head, looking up to say, so firmly, "I will not take advantage of you."

He sounds certain. Carver ... cannot let him be so. "You'd never. But," and he tries to put this in a way Cullen will understand. "Please, ser, you wouldn't have to."

How wretched he looks. And how tempted, too, and that starts a swell in Carver's chest, because he hasn't said 'no' yet, hasn't told Carver it's impossible. 'Ill-advised' isn't a refusal. It's practically a yes.

"Please, ser," he says again -- begs if he can admit it to himself -- and he reaches for Cullen's collar and Cullen _lets him_. "Please, if you ever cared for me--"

"Cared for you?" Now Cullen looks fucking _bereft_ , palms coming up to cup beneath Carver's jaw and hold him in place, eyes scanning Carver's face for something Carver doesn't know how to give. "My _knight_. Did you believe I did not?"

"You sent me away," Carver protests, both hands caught in Cullen's shirt. They are hard up against one another now, Cullen's torso a warm weight against his own. "I'd never have gone if you'd never ordered me to."

"And I have regretted it every day since." Cullen leans in, not for a kiss but to press his brow to Carver's, and Carver can feel the gust of his breath, can taste it on his tongue. "I thought it would be better for _you_ , I hoped ... but now ... oh, Carver."

And he tilts his head, and Carver follows him, because he must.

Cullen tastes of wine and lyrium, and just of Cullen, his lips soft and smooth and the warmth of him makes Carver moan. He tries to swallow it, but Cullen's tongue is hot on his lip and he can think of nothing but this, this thing he's wanted for longer than he understood. _Everyone was right,_ he thinks, dizzy with Cullen in his mouth. _Everyone knew it before I could ever. Fuck. Fuck, fuck..._

When Cullen pulls away his eyes are dark, half-lidded, colour blooming in his cheeks. "I have loved you," he says, low down and whisper-quiet, "longer and better than anyone I have ever known." But when Carver opens his mouth to say something, anything to meet that, Cullen goes on-- "And because I love you so well, I cannot do this lightly."

Carver doesn't know what that means, so he holds on, even as Cullen tries to extricate himself, refuses to let go of Cullen's shirt even though Cullen tries to pry his hands off. "Ser," he whines, hating himself for sounding so needy even when he is. "Please, ser. Don't send me away with _nothing_."

The look on Cullen's face is terrible, as though he's torn between two things and each of them will ruin him. "I must send you away. This is not ... we could go on as we have been, with this that we have between us. It need be only that, nothing more. I could be satisfied with this." He says, while the wrench of his mouth spills 'more' into the air and Carver just can't.

"I can't. I mean ... I could," he admits, untangling his fingers from the cloth of Cullen's shirt. Of course he _could_. If he had to. "But I don't want to. Not when I know there's more I could give you. If you wanted." He takes a breath, lungs shallow with a mix of regret and something worse. "Don't you _want_ , ser?"

Cullen is still as a stone, and then he shakes his head, eyes closed. "I do," he admits, voice gone rough. "Such things. I should not." 

"But you _do_."

"In any case," Cullen says, not meeting Carver's eye, "you must go. I am only flesh, and my resolve is thin."

"Then--" Carver starts, but Cullen gives him such a look, so heavy, that he stops himself.

"Would you have me do a thing I would regret?"

It's not fair. But. "No, ser. Never."

"Then, please. Go from me now. And we will speak again of this when we have both had time to consider it."

 _I have, I have, Maker I'd go down for you now, to my_ knees _, for you, whatever you wanted._ But Cullen said and Carver must, so he nods, stepping off. "Whatever you want, ser."

Cullen nods, blotchy and distracted, or maybe simply avoidant. "Good-night, Hawke."

"Good-night, Knight Captain."

The walk back is awful, cold and lonely, and the pressure of Cullen's mouth stays with him like a burn. When he gets to his room he leans against the door, hands coming up to cover his face, and then he feels the smooth planes of his cheeks beneath his fingers and just curls up, elbows to knees, just wrung out and too wrecked for anything.

 _We will speak again of this_ , Cullen said, and Carver clings to it. He can still feel Cullen on his mouth, the touch of fingers on his jaw, and he wishes so powerfully. Wishing has never got him anywhere before so he flings himself into bed, pulling the covers up over his head and curling against himself in the dark.

So close. Maybe ... in the morning. He has a morning meeting with his captain tomorrow. Maybe they'll talk of it then. Maybe Cullen won't want to discuss it so soon. Maybe, maybe...

 _But he does want you,_ he reminds himself, a small spark of hope flaring behind his ribs. _He said. He said ... he_ loves _you._

Or loved. Either way, it's better than anything anyone has ever said before. And he'll have that, if he can get it. One way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full Disclosure: I meant to say, I've been dithering over a shaving scene for a while, but I didn't actually write this until after reading [Lizapod's _Considerably Less Cannibalism_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3551783) over in the Kingsman fandom (that I am a part of now it seems, by Jove, the mentor/protege is strong in that one), a fic with plenty of shaving, eye-fucking, hero-worship, and smut. So, there you go.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got rather longer than I expected. Sorry for the hiatus, and that future chapters won't (hopefully) be this long.

Barker catches him at breakfast. "Nice face, ser. Can I steal you this morning? The Knights Corporal are bickering again and the only one who minds me is Stesha."

Carver has four Knights Corporal -- Barker, Stesha, Travers, and 'Call-me-Hadnan' Caldera -- and it's a lot like minding four stubborn overgrown children, each with a pack of mabari trotting at their heels getting into fights and howling about it. 

Barker, as Carver's second, is supposed to outrank the lot of them, but Travers was knighted before both Carver and Barker and remembers them running laps as recruits, so she tends to think she's supposed to be minding _them_. Which, to be fair, she's pretty good at, but it's a headache all the same.

Caldera, though, is a nuisance shaping up into a real problem. He's Antivan, some kind of wrong-side-of-the-blanket nobleman. And apparently women don't fight in Antiva -- which is news to Carver -- so both Travers and Stesha, already common as muck, don't get nearly the respect from him they're due.

Stesha's all right. She's quiet and polite, and her shield-bash is like being hit by a battering ram. Stesha might be Carver's favourite.

The last thing he wants to do this morning is sort out their bickering, not when he means to ambush Cullen for some sort of ... anything, really. "I've got a meeting with the Knight Captain," he says, trying to keep any hint of more out of his voice. "Can it wait?"

"No, and you don't, anyway. Cullen's out of the Gallows today."

What? "Why? Where did he go?"

"Chantry, so I'm told. I don't know why. Listen," and Barker taps his tablet against the table. "Travers caught a couple of Caldera's boys out after curfew, and now Caldera's gone and overridden their penances. He says they ought to have got off with a warning."

"What were they doing?"

"Er ... making time," Barker says, sounding embarrassed about it, which means they were sneaking around for a tumble. Ugh. Breaking curfew _and_ fraternisation.

"What did Travers give them?"

Barker frowns. "A month in the kitchens."

"Maker, that's steep. Did they mouth off?"

"Not that she reported. I gather they were both far too embarrassed to say anything at all."

Carver sighs, shoving himself up from the bench. So much for ambushing Cullen. "I'll deal with it. Get Travers and Caldera in my office, will you? Oh, and a teapot. For one."

When they come to him Travers is stubborn and Caldera's haughty, so maybe Carver gives them a bit more of a bollocking than they deserve. It's not as effective as he'd like -- Caldera walks out with a dire look, but at least he agrees to come to Carver next time he has an issue with another officer's orders. Travers spends the whole time staring at a spot on the wall above Carver's head, absolutely disengaged, but when he orders her to bring the penances down a few notches she gives him an, "As you say, ser," and he can't do much better than that.

He dismisses her then, but before he can finish his tea there's a knock at the door.

Bloody hell. "Come!"

It's Senior Enchanter Timony. "Ser Carver," he says, tucking his hands into his sleeves and looking serious. "I wanted to talk to you about Harrowing. If you don't mind."

Carver doesn't want to. He knows what he wants, he wants _Cullen_ , just ... just to talk to him, maybe. Or see him, just get a look at him and maybe, maybe there'd be enough in Cullen's face for Carver to know what the void is going to happen next.

But. Duty comes first, and he's supposed to be _in charge_ of the Apprentice Quarters, and he hasn't exactly done a very good job of that since he got back. It's important. Even if the last thing he wants to think about is Harrowing, after the last one he oversaw.

Paxley. Oh, Maker.

He sighs, and gestures to the chair against the wall. "Bring that over, then."

Timony looks gratified, and does so, fussily arranging his robes as he sits. "Thank-you, ser knight."

"No problem," Carver says, resigned. He'll get to Cullen eventually. A little more time can't hurt, can it?

But it's more than a little time, in the end; as soon as Timony's gone Barker bustles in to bother him about the night patrols and with that the day just vanishes into the tedium of scheduling. Still, Barker's a wonder, a fucking treasure, honestly, and Carver's so glad of him that he tells him so.

Barker seems sheepishly chuffed about it. "Glad to have you back too, ser. It's been difficult, while you've been gone."

This isn't the first time Barker's said something about it, but normally Carver's been on his way out of the office, running after Cullen wherever he could, so he's largely let it go. But now, with Barker sitting there all awkwardly _something_ , he knows he shouldn't. "How do you mean?"

Barker shrugs, not meeting his eye. "Things and, and things. You know it's harder, now, to get anything done, what with the Knight Commander's restrictions."

Carver's heard about _those_ , too. A lot of orders have to be signed off by a Lieutenant before they're enacted. It's tough for knights to get a pass out of the Gallows, without an officer's dispensation. Mages, who used to be given leave to be escorted up to the Chantry, are now entirely confined to the Gallows, to their _rooms_ often enough. And curfew has been tightened for mages; he's heard of dire penances given out for any caught in the corridors without good reason. It's strict. Carver supposes there must be reasons, but he hasn't heard of any that seem worth it.

"You've had a hard time of it?" he asks, and Barker frowns, stacking one tablet atop another and looking ... pretty severe.

"I _have_. Before I was promoted, I didn't have anyone to turn to about it, and since ... well, none of the other Lieutenants have been particularly ... approachable."

"Not even Rochard?" The Orlesian officer was always a trial, smirking at everything Carver said to him, but he has always been _approachable_.

Barker makes a face. "Ser. He's one of Meredith's."

Which shouldn't be an issue, but still. The lines in the Gallows were drawn long before Carver ever got there, Meredith on one side and Cullen on the other, everything exhaustingly political and _pointless_. But Rochard ... Carver's known he was Meredith's for ages, but all the same, he'd been decent to Carver in the past.

He doesn't argue, though, because Barker's so serious about the whole thing. "Nottely, then."

"Knight Lieutenant Nottely," Barker says, prim as a Chantry sister, "told me to mind my own business and not get caught up in 'pointless speculation'." He sounds sour about it, mouth pursed up tight, and it piques Carver's curiosity.

"About what?"

For a moment Barker just looks at him, considering. Then he says, "Actually, ser, there's something you might want to see." He goes to a cupboard, opens it up, and rummages around a bit before pulling out a leather-wrapped wad of parchment. He unties it and lays it out on the desk, shuffling the papers into some kind of order.

"What's this?" Carver eyes it suspiciously. It looks like paperwork, the boring kind, half of it in Barker's unbearably neat hand and the other half a jumble of scribbles.

Barker sits down, leaning his elbows on the desk. "My reports. Amongst other things."

Carver picks up one of the papers to read it. It's just a list of names: Albert, Alrik, Colwen, Dar, Emeric, Flanagan, Gerhard, Gault, Jolen, Karras, Ladd, Mettin, Nickelby, Norbert, Pereval, Renata, Thorley, Varnell. Carver recognises most of them. They're Templars. And, from what he recalls, all of them dead, one way or another. Several have been underlined (Alrik, Dar, Flanagan, Jolen, Karras, Ladd, Mettin, Pereval, Renata, Varnell) and several have stars inked beside their names (Albert, Dar, Ladd, Mettin, Norbert, Pereval, Thorley) . Carver reads it over several times, wondering what this is about, but gives it up as a lost cause.

"Why don't you just tell me what you're on about?" he says, and Barker sighs heavily before tapping the list with one gauntleted finger.

"These are knights who died in the last five years without explanation. Some of them," and he points to 'Albert', "were found with no obvious cause of death. Just dead. And some," he adds, indicating 'Mettin', "were well known to be ... unkind to mages."

Carver blinks, reading the list over again. "And some were both?" Dar, Ladd, Mettin, Pereval. Well. Pereval and Mettin had been _dicks_ for certain. Carver wasn't even a little sorry to find out they'd carked it. He's viciously glad, rather, remembering how Pereval had accosted Selwyn, how he'd caught him and how Pereval hadn't seemed even a little guilty about what he'd been caught doing. But still, the list is worrying. The fact that Barker _has_ a list is worrying too. "You've got a theory, then?"

The look on Barker's face reminds him painfully of Paxley, and how all three of them had gone over lists before, of people they believed to be trying to recruit Carver into the pro-tranquility faction of the Gallows. Alrik and Pereval -- and Flanagan, come to think of it -- had been on _that_ list too; he wondered now if it was relevant.

"I do." Barker hesitates, tongue hovering on his lip. "I think someone's murdering them. With magic."

It takes a moment for Carver to understand him, but then-- " _What?_ Like ... some kind of magical _assassin_?"

"Maybe." Barker frowns. "Knight Lieutenant Nottely called it nonsense. But I can't help wondering. These four," and Barker taps the ones who've been underlined _and_ starred, "were found beneath the Gallows, in the tunnels. Alrik too, but he'd been burned alive along with some of these others. It was obvious they'd fought with someone. Nottely told me that was none of my business when I asked, and I didn't ask again."

"You think it's a mage," Carver says, and then-- "Maker, you think it's my _brother_?" No, no, he can't think that. That's just too awful. Anyway, Garrett doesn't kill people in an unobtrusive sort of way, he usually just...

Burns them alive. Maker's fucking _balls_.

But Barker shakes his head. "No. I think it's one of ours."

The thought is somehow worse. Because if it was Garrett then at least ... well, at least he won't do it to anyone who isn't a total shitstain. _Or gets in his way, Carver, you_ know _that._

One of their own mages, though, could come after any of them.

"Are you sure?" he asks, disturbed by the idea more deeply than he can explain. 

Barker shrugs. "No? But it's suspicious enough to warrant looking into. Don't you think?"

"I guess so." 

There a lot of paper here, a lot of reading. Balls to reading, it's the _worst_. But one glance at Barker's earnest face makes it clear what he has to do. "All right. I'll look at it. If you want."

Barker stands up, evidently satisfied. "I'll get us some more tea, then, shall I?"

* * *

"A murderer. How exciting."

Carver glares up at him. "For _you_. He's killing Templars, whoever he is. I could be next."

The demon runs a blunt talon along Carver's eyebrow. It's soothing, somehow, the repetitive stroke of it calming and familiar. "I'd never let that happen to you," the demon says. "If you'd let me ride behind your eyes, then--"

"No," Carver tells him, firm because in this he must be. "I'm not stupid. You're still a demon."

"I _was_ ," the demon concedes. He looks pensive. It's strange to think of him that way, seven-foot giant that he is, goat-legged as he is, lavender and crowned with great ridged horns as he is. "I'm not sure I am anymore." He smiles, and goes back to stroking Carver's face. "You've corrupted me."

"Yeah, _right_." Carver doesn't believe that for a second. Still. "If you looked at a person, do you think you'd be able to tell if they were a murderer?"

"Maybe."

"I thought you could read people's thoughts," Carver argues. "You read _mine_."

The demon smiles. "I'm buried in you, how could I miss them?" He tilts his head, regarding Carver with something that looks oddly like affection. "Your thoughts are delicious. So _earnest_. So lonely. You feel everything and bottle it up inside until the worst parts bubble out, and then you regret it so hard you try to convince yourself you never felt it at all."

That's not true. He's not like that, he doesn't--

"Oh, hush," the demon says, petting him fondly. "Don't get upset, we're having such a nice time, aren't we?"

Carver's lying on a lounge in a ruined bedroom he can't deny has its original in Fenris' house, head cradled in the lap of a demon who pretends to like him so it can possess him and _eat his brain_. Yeah. Lovely.

"I _could_ , probably." It takes Carver a moment to remember what they were talking about. Everything shifts so, here in what he presumes is the Fade. It's hard to keep track. "If you did let me ride you. Then I _might_ find your murderer."

Clever. "I'll keep that in mind," Carver mutters, and the demon laughs, talon gone suddenly sharp as it pricks him.

"You don't really care about the murders," he says, in that sibilant burr of a voice. "I know what you care about."

"No you don't."

"I _do_. He's avoiding you."

Carver doesn't need a name to know. And he doesn't need to hear this right now. "Leave it alone."

"You _want_ him. And you deserve him. Go catch your pretty Captain unawares and _have_ him."

Carver closes his eyes, hoping the demon will go away. When he opens them again, though, he's still there, still smirking at him, still tracing Carver's eyebrows with his claws. "Do you really think he's avoiding me?"

"I think if you go see him he'll give you what you want. Just give him a little push. Tell him you love him. It's what he wants to hear."

Carver shakes his head. "Stop it. Just _stop_ it, all right? Let's do something else. Be Pax or, or something. Let's go fishing."

The demon laughs, but does as he's told, and Carver pretends to believe him.

* * *

In the morning Carver ends up going over the Harrowing list with Knight Lieutenant Nottely, who doesn't seem particularly impressed with Carver for some reason. It's all a bit awful, matching junior knights to apprentices they might have some personal stake in. In several cases Nottely advises delaying a Harrowing until the preferred recruit has a better grasp of his or her Smite, and Carver thinks it's unfair but he doesn't say so.

After that he spends some time in the yard, and when he eventually goes in, expecting Cullen's standing invitation for dinner to be, well, still standing, he is surprised to be turned away by Ser Agatha.

"The Knight Captain's with the Knight Commander," she says, and for a horrible moment Carver thinks Cullen might be reporting him for fraternisation.

"Why?" he asks, and Agatha looks amused.

"Promotions are coming up. We're short a few Knights Corporal, you know."

"Oh. Uh, anyone up for it that I should know about?"

"If you mean Ser Ruvena or Ser Hugh," Agatha says dryly, "then no, ser. Did you have someone you wanted to put forward?"

"No. I guess not." 

Not like he's been back long enough to make those kind of recommendations, after all. Not like he'd realised he had that kind of power, either. Still, it makes him think, and here in the corridor outside Cullen's office he and Agatha are as close to alone as they can reasonably get. In that people are wandering past, but none of them have any reason to hang around. And Carver's been wondering something he wants an answer to.

"Uh, can I ask you something?"

Her amused look intensifies. "Of course, ser." Because he outranks her, and she has to, and that's a little awkward, honestly. But he wants to know, so he speaks his mind, and tries not to feel as though he's bullying her into this.

"You should have been promoted a long time ago."

It's not a question, but Agatha seems to understand. She shrugs, not obviously uncomfortable. "Maybe. I've never been popular with the Knight Commander, ser. She favours the hard approach, with mages."

"Cullen likes you enough, though," and it's true; Cullen has always been keen on Agatha. Carver isn't jealous of that, or at least he doesn't think he is. Surely they'd have done something about that, if there was anything more to it.

Ser Agatha doesn't exactly frown but it's there, somewhere in her face. "The Knight Captain favours a hard approach with mages as well."

That's not right. Cullen's fair with them, Carver's pretty sure. "I don't know about that," he says doubtfully, but Agatha's steady look makes him think again. "I wouldn't have thought that would make him overlook you this long."

Now she smiles, just a little. "You say that as though he has much say in promotion. I was useful to him as I was, anyway. Probably would never have been promoted here, if I weren't to be wed."

Carver gapes at her for a moment, and then snaps his mouth shut. "I didn't know. Congratulations, Ser Agatha." She accepts this with a gracious nod, and then he can't help himself. "I didn't know marriage made a difference to promotion, either."

"It doesn't, normally. But I'm marrying up, and the Knight Commander probably feels that it looks better for a nobleman to marry an officer instead of a plain knight."

There, a second surprise. "You're marrying a noble?"

"His name's Artauld." She smiles, kicking a foot idly against the stone flags. "Youngest child of Lord Worthing. Your cousin, ser, though much removed."

Third surprise. "Then ... that'll make us family, Ser Agatha."

"It _will_ , ser." She stands up a little straighter, eyes bright. "I didn't know if you'd count it."

"Rather count you than any noble here," he says, and then wonders if it's rude, given that she's marrying one. Her expression suggests not. "When's the wedding?"

"A month." She hesitates, but then gestures broadly with one hand. "I'd be honoured if you'd attend, ser."

Fourth surprise, and Carver takes a couple of heartbeats to comprehend it. Is she just being polite? He can't tell, but he knows what his answer should be, all the same. "I'd be glad to," he says, and he does want. Even if she only invited him because they _will_ be family. Such as it is. "I've never been to a Kirkwall wedding."

"It's sure to be dull, ser," she says, "but there's food and drink after, and merriment I hope. The Knight Captain will be glad of your company."

Carver doesn't blush, though it's a close call. "I'll do my best to keep him entertained."

"Good." She hesitates again, but this time her expression is awkward. "He won't be back til curfew, I don't think. Shall I tell him you wanted him?"

"Oh. No. It's nothing. I'll try him tomorrow." He pauses, not sure where he's going or what he's doing. Cullen's so hard to get at, just now, and all he wants ...

He can't have it. Not yet. _Give it time._

"Here, is my brother coming to your wedding?" he asks her on impulse.

Her smile is slow and broad. "I don't know that he's been invited, ser."

Hah. "Good," Carver tells her, buoyed by that at least. "Let's keep it that way."

* * *

In the morning, Cullen proves completely invisible. Carver spends the day in _meetings_ , and can't even go find him after his shift because Barker's booked him in for _another_ meeting with Rochard and Damia -- about recruiting, of all things -- and it's possible that he throws a small fit over it when Barker tells him.

"Maker, I'd welcome a little time for myself," he grouses, but Barker just fixes him with a Look.

"The Knight Captain suggested it," he says, and Carver can't quite believe it.

"What, Cullen wants me to have _evening_ meetings, now?"

"He said," and Barker looks so awkward about it, "that it wouldn't be an inconvenience."

Wouldn't, hey? Well, it fucking _was_. "Sounds like he's avoiding me," he complains, but then...

Oh. 

Barker doesn't seem to notice, just shrugs one shoulder. "You've had a lot of his time, since you got back. Though, you always did." 

"He's my Captain," Carver says, because what else can he _say_? 

Barker doesn't look up. "He's _my_ Captain too, ser, all the same." He leans one hip against the desk to set down his tablet. "He's never even invited me to tea, let alone dinner."

Wonderful. Now Carver has to be guilty about it, and really it isn't fair on Barker at all. "You've got _me_ , though," he says, trying to be jolly about it, but Barker purses his lips, which looks strange under that moustache.

"You've never invited me to dinner either."

"We eat together _all the time_."

"In the mess. Never privately." Barker lifts his chin. "I don't _care_ particularly, I'm simply saying."

"And I suppose you have loads of private dinners with _your_ adjutant."

Barker's eyes flicker up and away. "I make time for her. We dine together frequently." He clears his throat, frowning. "Don't _worry_ , is my point. The Knight Captain's busy and he'll see you soon enough. Meanwhile, when you're done with the Knights Lieutenant, Hugh wants to go to the Hanged Man. He says you owe us a pint," he adds, with some amusement. "I'm inclined to agree."

Oh, _well_ then. "Who else is going? So I know how much it'll cost me for the first round."

"Ruvena, of course. Hugh and Wertold and Moira. Is there anyone else you'd like me to invite?"

"What about Margie?" Carver asks, and the flutter of dismay in Barker's expression is something of a shock.

"Ser Margitte is ... no longer our friend," Barker says, very delicately. 

" _What?_ Was there a row?"

"No, no. Her duties have her much with the Knight Commander and her views ... let us say that her priorities have shifted. We hold very little in common, these days. You will find her quite cold." He looks as hurt by this as Carver feels. Margie. His friend, surely. _She taught me to dance. She gave me a journal._ And he hasn't even looked in on her before now; what an _ass_ he is.

But. "If you say so," he says, doubting it but unable to admit as much aloud.

It puts a dampener on the whole thing, Carver's gut aching as he looks around the table at the Hanged Man. No Margie. No Pax. Keran's gone too -- and that was a scandal he wished his stupid brother could have kept out of. Poor Thrask. Poor Keran, shoved out into the world.

Hugh's on a tear, though, telling a story about the recruits that has everyone else in fits. He waggles his eyebrows at Carver after the punchline and Carver makes himself smile because, well, it _was_ funny, or he thinks it might have been if the recruits involved were more than just names to him. And they should be, they really should, so he resolves to spend more time in the yard, more time getting to know them all. Future knights, right? He's going to have to make recommendations for knighting, soon, so it makes sense to have some idea of who deserves it.

He's rescued from saying anything in reply by the sudden flash of brown skin over his eyes, and a voice in his ear, crowing, "Guess who!"

"Hullo, Captain," he says, and he's rewarded by the return of his sight and warm hands squeezing his shoulders.

"No-one told me you were back. That's so unfair!" He twists to look up at her, and she's the same old Isabela, just as cheeky and beautiful as always. "I think you owe me a drink."

"You want to drink with Templars?"

She shrugs, squishing herself in at the end of the bench, crowding him until he makes room. "I've got nothing to hide. Hullo, all of you." She tosses her hair over one shoulder, grinning like it's her nameday. "My, my, aren't you a handsome lot. I could give each of you a kiss."

"Can I go first?" Hugh asks, which gets him a throaty chuckle.

"I suppose we'll see." She turns a smile on Carver, bright and expectant. "Well? _Are_ you going to buy me a drink? Or shall I die of thirst?"

Typical Isabela. "You missed my round," he says, but he lets her have his pint, and when the next jug comes (courtesy of Ser Moira) there's an extra mug along with it.

"So," Isabela says, settling up against Carver's shoulder. "How's life in the dread Gallows? Exciting, I hope. Lots of lovely gossip?"

"Not about anyone you know," Carver snorts, but Isabela gives him a sly look.

"I know _loads_ of Templars. I know you, Ser Barker," she says, winking at him. "And you, lovely. What's your name again?"

Ser Moira looks aghast for a moment, but recovers herself very quickly. "Moira." She goes rather pink, and tries to cover it with a scowl. "I don't know yours, serrah."

"Captain Isabela, of the Bright Booty. Queen of the Eastern Seas," she adds gleefully. "I've always liked the sound of that. Ooh, and I know your Knight Captain, too. Such a pretty man. Tell me he's tumbling someone, it's such a waste otherwise."

Carver opens his mouth to shut her up about it, but Ruvena laughs, her eyes catching his and glittering with amusement. "If he isn't then he's a bloody idiot."

"Ruvena," Barker says quietly, but she ignores him.

"Half the recruits are in love with him, and half the junior knights too." She tops up her mug and lifts it in a toast. "To the Knight Captain, and his magnificent arse."

Isabela looks delighted. "Oh, I'll drink to _that_!" 

She does, and Moira too, though Barker frowns and Hugh makes a disgusted face. Wertold just looks awkward, glancing at each of them one after the other, finally settling on Carver with a pleading look.

Carver doesn't drink. It seems so tawdry, too disrespectful. Plus he doesn't want to think about Cullen right now, not when he's fairly certain there's a reason he can't get Cullen to see him

"You got any gossip for _me_?" he asks, just to change the subject.

Isabela makes a cheeky face. "Are you asking who I'm sleeping with, puppy? For shame. That's private."

"No it isn't," he scoffs, topping up his mug. "And no, I _wasn't_. How's," and he pauses because he can't ask about Merrill, not in front of the others, and he doesn't _care_ how Garrett or Anders (or Fenris) are, so he's at a loss until he remembers, "Varric. How's he doing?"

"If you really wanted an answer to that you could go upstairs and find out for yourself." Ugh, she knows him too well. But, maybe because she _does_ know him, she goes on to say, "He's all right. He inherited a haunted house, did you hear? We had to clear it out for him. Nasty business."

"What, proper haunted?" Hugh looks thrilled by this. "Maker! How do you fight a ghost?"

"Mostly by ignoring them," Isabela tells him, leaning in with a sharp smile. "Tell you what, buy me a stronger drink and I'll tell you _all_ about it."

Carver tries not to watch as Isabela talks Hugh into emptying his purse, first with drinks and then a bet on an ill-advised arm-wrestle, but when she casually suggests he could teach her to play Wicked Grace Carver has to intervene.

"Don't fleece my knights," he says gruffly. "Hugh, don't be daft. She's a _pirate_."

Isabela frowns at him. "Not all pirates cheat at cards."

"I didn't say you'd cheat. That was you."

"Mmm, it was, wasn't it?" She stretches, showing off an inviting length of thigh, and grins at them all. "Well, if no-one's up for a good fleecing, I have a charming dwarf upstairs waiting for someone to come drink all his brandy. Evening, boys and girls. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"That leaves _everything_ ," Carver mutters, and she leans down to kiss his cheek, pinching him after for good measure.

"Pretty much everything fun. You're welcome."

And she saunters off, the same Isabela she's always been, not a shred different to the one he remembered.

Hugh groans, wiping a hand over his face. " _Maker_ , Hawke. That woman. You sly fucking dog."

"Why? It's not like we're screwing."

Hugh looks so disgusted. "What, you never tried?"

Carver opens his mouth to say 'no' but then he remembers. "Uh," he says, and well, that's blood in the water and Ruvena is a fucking _shark_.

"Aw, did she knock you back?" His face must give him away because she grins. "No? So, you _tumbled_ her and you never said." She sounds so pleased. "When was that?"

"Long before I ever met any of you sorry lot," he protests, and then he kicks himself because that was an admission of guilt, fuck, he really should learn to keep his mouth shut.

They mock him genially, especially Hugh, but it's all right. His friends, here in this too-familiar place where everything's okay.

The drinks keep coming, but Carver doesn't feel like making a real night of it, so when Hugh suggests they get some kind of awful fucking shots Carver announces that he's heading back to the Gallows.

"Good idea, ser," Barker says, pushing himself to his feet. Hugh makes noise about it but Ruvena just snorts and gets up herself.

"Have fun. Be kind to Werty," she adds, smirking horribly, "he's just a baby."

"Hardly," Wertold protests, but she cackles at him and ruffles his hair, and tells him to be good or she'll make him run laps with a hangover.

The three of them go down to the docks, wait for the barge to be readied, and Carver breathes in the foul Kirkwall stink and thinks, _Yeah, all right. This is home._

"Moira's never going to let Hugh in her pants," Ruvena says cheerfully, leaned up against a hitching post. "He's always barking up the wrong tree. Silly sod."

"Isn't she? She seems to like him well enough."

Rovena chuckles, and it sounds so dirty. "Oh, our Moira doesn't like _boys_. Didn't you see how she was mooning after your pirate friend?"

Carver hadn't. But. "Isabela has that effect on everyone," he says, no malice in it because it's only the truth.

"Including you, apparently." She shakes her head, smiling at him in a way he doesn't quite get. "Strange. You were never much for the girls."

"Sure I was. Am," he amends. And then-- "You _know_ that."

Because of anyone, Rue ought to know.

She glances over her shoulder. There's nothing there but Barker chatting politely to the barge attendant, and then she turns back to lift a finger to her mouth. "That's a secret, Hawke. You're not going to tell anyone about it, are you?"

"Who would I tell?" But of course he won't. "No reason to, anyway. We're good." _Aren't we?_

"Pretty bloody good," she agrees, and then the barge is ready and Barker fetches them for it. 

It's an easy crossing, the wind cool and salty, tangling thick fingers in his hair. Barker is murmuring something to Ruvena that makes her laugh, head thrown back to expose her neck, and Carver's glad they get along now. Maker, he wouldn't have expected that in a million years, but it can only be a good thing. All his friends, such bloody good friends now.

Except Cullen. Ugh, he has no idea what's going on there, and Cullen really is avoiding him, he _is_. The more Carver thinks about it the more he's convinced, and Barker's ... not _wrong_ about how much of Cullen's time he's had to himself before, but that only makes it all the worse when he has none of it now.

He sighs into the wind, scrubs a hand through his hair, and tries not to worry. It's hard, though. Maybe he worries too much, just in general, and entirely too much about Cullen.

_But he said he loved you. How could he avoid you after that?_

The voice in his head doesn't quite sound like his own, too strange, too resonant. The thought, though, lodges in his brain like a burr and won't go, not when they've docked, not when the three of them go up past the night guard, not even when they stop in the corridor that branches into the knights quarters.

Barker clears his throat. "I have work to do. I should ... I'll be in my office."

And Ruvena rolls her eyes, smirking like she knows something. "Oh yeah? Need a hand with that, _ser_?"

Barker looks so awkward. "If you ... of course, that would be welcome."

Oh _hells_. "You don't need me, though, do you?" It's his fucking night off, does he really need to go over schedules and lists and _things_ tonight? It's past curfew.

But Barker shakes his head. "Thank-you, no. Get some rest, Hawke. Your morning's rather full, after all."

Of course it is. Barker made it that way. "Don't let him bully you into working too late," he tells Ruvena, but she waves him off.

"I won't do anything I'm not willing to, never you mind."

"Night, then," Carver says, and Barker _salutes_ him, like a prat, but Ruvena just grins, strutting off down the hall, and that's okay.

Carver goes to his room, washes his face, and is about to take off his boots when he thinks, _You could go now. Cullen can't be too busy to see you_ now _, surely._

His thoughts have a buzz to them, and maybe it's Corff's terrible ale (though he didn't have much) or just his own irritation, but either way there's merit to them, so he runs his fingers through his hair, tucks a mint leaf into his cheek, and chews on it all the way to Cullen's door.

When he knocks he thinks for a horrible few moments that nothing will happen. _Idiot, if he doesn't want to see me then this is so stupid,_ I'm _so stupid, I don't know why I ever thought--_

But the door opens and there he is, Cullen in his nightrobes, looking ... actually looking _worse_ than usual.

"Are you all right, ser?" Carver asks, and Cullen seems startled by it, takes a moment to smooth down his robes and collect himself.

"Surely I should ask that of you, knocking on my door so late."

"I'm fine," Carver tells him, and then, "can I come in, though?"

Cullen nods and lets him in, and then he latches the outer door before leading Carver into his bedchamber.

He latches that door also, fussing with it before turning around. He seems to steel himself, and that more than anything makes Carver think he's made a terrible mistake.

But all Cullen says is, "Knight Lieutenant," and Carver can't bear it any longer.

"Are you avoiding me, ser?"

Cullen looks so _caught_ , so awkward. Carver feels it like ice sliding in beneath his ribcage. So he _has_ been.

But what Cullen says is, "I did not mean to avoid you, precisely. Only to give you some time to consider."

Carver feels his mouth turn down. "You say that like I haven't had _years_ , ser."

The creases around Cullen's eyes deepen. He looks ... anguished, maybe? Carver doesn't like that; it bodes very ill. " _You_ say that so easily. It is not so easy for me."

"I don't see why." Carver feels petulant, like a child arguing for a treat. He tries instead to sound reasonable. "If you like me, ser, then ... well, I like you too. And if you want me," he adds as bold as he can, "then you should know that I do too. Want you."

Cullen nods, eyes flickering up to meet Carver's, a wretched cast to his features that makes Carver badly want to smooth it way. "And if I love you?" he says, so low it is barely audible at all.

Carver breathes in, tries to still the frantic flutter in his chest. "I think I've loved you for a long time."

The words seem to wound him; Cullen flattens a hand to his belly, fingertips catching in the soft cloth of his robes. "Hawke," he says, and then, " _Carver_. I fear ... that this will be the ruin of us both."

"Because it's fraternisation?"

Cullen winces. "Yes. And because, should she find out, it would give Meredith power over us."

It sounds absurd. "She's already got the keys to the lyrium cabinet," Carver scoffs. "Like she can't hold that over our heads as it is."

Cullen goes rather pale, but he nods stiffly. "You are quite right. Still. She would be well within the regulations to send you away to some Maker-forsaken garrison in the midst of nowhere, and I should never see you again."

"She can do that _now_ , ser, she doesn't need this as an excuse." It would hurt almost as much, even though they aren't ... everything he wants. 

But Cullen is shaking his head. He sinks wearily onto the end of his bed (not the couch, no, nor one of the chairs, but his _bed_ , oh Maker...) "She would do worse, if she discovered this. And she would. Eventually."

So it's _Meredith_ in his way. And a wild, strange idea blooms in Carver's head, so sudden it makes him giddy. Oh. Maker. "What about," he says aloud, "when you're Knight Commander?"

Cullen just _stares_. "That may be a good many years from now," he says quietly, but Carver can see that he's holding something back all the same.

"Will it, though? I know you have plans, ser." Carver summons his courage, because they have never actually discussed this, and the penalties for being caught in _this_ far outstrip the penalties for being caught fraternising. "I know you want to be rid of her."

"You don't know--"

"I know you wanted Tristram for your Knight Captain, when the time came," Carver ploughs on, reckless in his desperation. "And I know he ruined that. And now ... well, now you've got me, ser."

Cullen makes a weak noise that could be mistaken for a chuckle, only it sounds too painful for that. "Are you volunteering to be my Captain, Hawke?"

"I'm just _saying_ ," Carver protests, and he can't bear to look down at Cullen now so he goes to the floor at Cullen's feet, one knee to the rug-covered flagstones. "I'm your man, ser. Whatever comes, I'll follow your lead. I'll be _with_ you. No matter ... even if you tell me you don't want anything else from me, I'm still your knight. I'll always be that."

It takes a long time, but Cullen says, "Thank-you. It means ... more than you know, to hear it."

"Then..." Carver doesn't want to ask but he _must_. "Is that all you want of me, ser? My loyalty?"

The look Cullen turns on him is so pained Carver almost feels it himself. "How selfish would it be of me to say that I truly want all of you for myself?"

Oh. Carver feels like his chest is bound up in iron. "Not very," he says and then, when Cullen does nothing, he asks, "Is that a 'yes', ser?"

For a moment Cullen hesitates, but he nods, lifting a hand to curl his fingers loosely around Carver's arm at the elbow. "It is. Though I'm not sure, exactly, to what I've just agreed." He smiles, this thin, worn thing and Carver wants to touch it so badly.

"Can I kiss you?" he asks, pressing the backs of his fingers to Cullen's chest, feeling the warm solid weight of him through his robes, the heavy tread of his heart. 

Cullen sighs in a kind of relief. "Oh, _please_ do," and Carver doesn't need to be told twice; he cups his hands beneath Cullen's jaw and leans in to catch his lip.

Maker, _Cullen_. He's soft at first, almost chaste, but then his tongue is in Carver's mouth, hands gathered in the small of Carver's back, and Carver feels like his heart might just _stop_.

Cullen ducks his head into the hollow of Carver's neck, presses his mouth to Carver's jaw, then his cheek to Carver's cheek, and breathes out. "Sweet Andraste, Carver ... I told myself I would not, that there was no need for this. That I had no right to approach you."

It sounds just like him. "So you'd never have said a word?"

"If not for your declaration I would have taken this to the grave."

It's so melodramatic. Carver can't help himself. "That's rubbish, ser." He pulls away, just far enough to look Cullen in the eye. "You'd have just stood back and let me make a mess of it with someone else?"

"I had hoped you would make _heaven_ of it," Cullen says softly, eyes dark in the half-light. "I wanted you well married and happy without me."

"Yeah?" Carver runs fingers into Cullen's hair, messing it so it sticks up all ways, and Cullen _lets_ him. "You never liked it before, when I was with someone else."

"If you mean Serrah _Fenris_ ," Cullen says quietly, "then please remember that the first I saw of _him_ was when he meant to tear out your heart. And then, he did tear it out, and I had to watch you grieve for it." Cullen presses his brow against Carver's, sighing heavily. "If you knew how it felt then, to think ... but please. It is very late, and I would rather kiss you than dwell on the past."

Carver grins, despite the weird pang at the back of his chest that comes with mention of Fenris, because Cullen wants to _kiss_ him and _said so out loud_. "Late, is it?" He ducks his head, pushing a kiss into the corner of Cullen's mouth to see if he'll chase it, and he _does_. "You gunna kick me out soon, ser?"

"Ah." Cullen slips his hands up Carver's back, his mouth flickering in and out of a smile, as though he tries to hide it but it simply will not go. "Not at all. But if you stay then we will neither of us get any sleep, I'm sure." He says it sweetly, not a hint of anything lewd in it, and then his smile breaks free and he kisses Carver again, pulling him up against his chest and keeping him there.

He lets Carver stay, in the end, lets Carver take off his boots and climb up on the bed. They lie twined in one another, Carver used to the tangle of limbs but Cullen clearly awkward with it. Carver pulls him half over, lets Cullen rest between his thighs and bless him with slow, careful kisses. For hours, it seems, Cullen's beard scratching him until his skin feels raw beneath it, and Carver doesn't want to stop. It's so pleasant, heat pooling in his crotch like thick honey, just _pleasant_ , as Cullen sighs and smiles and looks for once so utterly _happy_. 

"I feel unworthy of this," Cullen confesses, somewhere in the dark before dawn. They have been sharing confidences -- Carver's feelings about his brother, Cullen's about his father, both of them admitting they're worried what Meredith will make of the Gallows if she keeps on the way she has begun -- and Cullen's voice has dipped low, intimate in the closeness of breath-warmed air between them. "I don't deserve it."

Carver can't get his head around it. This is _Cullen_ , the most righteous and deserving man he knows. Surely Cullen deserves a good deal more than _Carver_. But when he says as much Cullen shushes him with his fingers, and whispers that he is glorious, magnificent, too wonderful for words, and Carver has to kiss him to shut him up.

"And I don't deserve you. I am," Cullen admits, shamefaced, "a terrible sinner. They say that a sin committed in the mind is as tarnishing to the soul as the sin committed in the flesh. And I have, in my mind, committed _many_ sins."

That doesn't make any sense either. "Pretty sure the Maker forgives you for thinking about hacking off someone's head rather than, you know, actually doing it."

"I cannot claim to know the mind of the Maker," Cullen says, stroking Carver's hair and speaking to the naked skin of Carver's neck. "However, I know that my sins cannot be forgiven in this life. And how they, in particular, make me unworthy of you."

"How?" He looks too serious, so Carver runs fingers through Cullen's hair until it sticks up all over like straw. So fair and stiff and wiry. He hadn't expected that. He likes it, though, likes how Cullen lets him. "I don't see it at all."

Cullen doesn't answer at once, just closes his eyes, tilting his head into Carver's palm. "In Kinloch Hold ... when the Tower fell. I have told you there were blood mages."

"And demons," Carver says, and Cullen nods.

"I saw ... Many of my friends were killed. Tortured, some of them, and then killed. Their deaths were not pleasant." He takes a breath, wincing as if whatever he sees there is terrible. "There was one demon in particular. She was very beautiful, very clever, and very cruel. She kept me alive to plague me with fantasies of things I wanted. And then she would ruin them, turn them inside out, making debaucheries of them all. It ... gave me some clarity, I suppose. To understand that beneath the seeming innocence of my desires there lurked something dark and unwholesome. That I am, in fact, as much a brute as any other man."

"You aren't, though." Carver tightens his grip, tugging on Cullen's hair until his eyes open. " _Ser_. You're nothing like that. Anyway, that was a demon doing that. It wasn't _you_."

Cullen turns away, refusing to meet Carver's eye. "I did it, all the same. I told myself my soul remained pure," and he sounds so deeply disgusted Carver can't bear it. "But after ... when your cousin came she scoured the Tower clean, saving those who could be saved. I was so ... awful to her. Such things I said. I regret all that." He still won't meet Carver's eye. "I was unwell, then. I don't know that I've ever been well since."

Carver has no idea what to say to that, so all he does is rub Cullen's scalp, down his neck, across the breadth of his shoulders. Cullen trembles under it, bows his head to press his lips to Carver's collarbone. 

"Demons and blood mages, shades and abominations," Cullen says, soft as a whisper. "The faithful should not fear them. 'For the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword.' And yet, I do."

"Everybody does," Carver tells him, unsure how to say anything that will help. "Only mad people don't. I know _I_ do. But ... you don't have to face them by yourself. You're not alone."

Cullen looks up, and there's so much there in his face Carver can't begin to comprehend all of it. The smile, though, is clear enough. "Not when I have you. I believe your purity of heart could ward off the strongest demon."

Carver snorts, because that's ridiculous. "Don't know about that. But I'd try. And I'm not going anywhere."

"No," Cullen agrees, and kisses him.


	35. Chapter 35

Carver doesn't even notice the light come in until Cullen startles, blinking at his shutters. "Maker bless us, is it dawn already?"

He looks downcast. Carver grins. “Don’t you want me to go?”

Cullen eyes him, all over regret. “I would keep you with me always, if I could.”

“Hah! Better get me a day off then, ser,” Carver says, still grinning. He shoves himself up on hands and knees, ducking his head to press a kiss to the corner of Cullen’s mouth, but Cullen catches him, pulls him down to be kissed properly, as though he has still not yet had enough. Carver permits this, because whatever his Captain wants and, anyway, Cullen is the boss of him after all.

When Cullen’s had enough he lets Carver go with a sigh. “Be off with you, if you must go. And I know you must,” he says sadly. He squeezes Carver’s shoulder with blunt fingers, and there are shadows beneath his eyes but this time, at least, Carver knows he has good reason for his sleeplessness, not the weight of nightmares and worry.

“I’ll come back, ser,” he promises, “after curfew tonight, I’ll come back.”

But Cullen shakes his head. “Not tonight. You must sleep, my knight,” he says, and he says it so softly it makes Carver’s chest feel full and warm. His captain, concerned for him. It’s wonderful.

“Alright ser, if you say. But, tomorrow? _Please?_ ”

Cullen’s smile is tired but just for him. “How could I deny you in any thing?” he says, which Carver takes for a yes.

He carries that smile with him back to his room, through the hurry of a whore’s-bath, and out into the Gallows, safely wrapped up in his robes and plate. It feels … surreal. People nod to him – officer-shy recruits, knights who like him, knights who don’t, nervous mages in their bright-panelled robes -- and none of them _know_. They can't, how could they? No-one knows how Cullen smiled for him, how Cullen's eyes lit up, how warm they were in the privacy of his room, his night-robe bunched up to his elbows as he ran his fingers through Carver's hair. And they're such good fingers, too, such good _hands_ , strong and bold and thick-fingered. They felt so good on Carver's skin, or pressing his flesh through the thin fabric of his shirt. Fingertips brushing warmth into him, gentle on him in a way he hadn't really known Cullen could be gentle.

Maker, he's _besotted_.

And so he should be, he decides, settling in at his desk to thumb through the reports Barker's left for him. Besotted with a man who has loved him for years, has looked out for him in ways Cullen admitted out loud he should not have but couldn't help; there's nothing wrong with that.

He tries to pay attention to his corporals' reports. Barker's are neat and to the point. Stesha's meander a bit, peppered with errors. Travers' get the gist across but they're practically all one run-on sentence. Caldera, though ... Maker, he can go on for _pages_ , half of it flowery nonsense. His signature is a gigantic flourish almost the size of Carver's palm. He's just confirming this, hand flat on the page, when someone knocks on his door.

It's Wertold, surprise of surprises. Carver would have expected him to be overhung with whatever the others got him up to the night before, but instead he looks crisp and _worried_ , which is somewhat worse. He comes in hesitantly and tips Carver a respectful salute. "Ser. I know it's early, but do you have a moment?"

He's so _awkward_. He's never come to see Carver before, never wanted any of his time, never asked for leniency or favours. They do, usually, the junior knights, come in to beg off a penance or for a half day for family. But Wertold? Never. It must be serious.

Carver braces himself for the revelation that Wertold's got someone pregnant or _killed_ someone, and says, "Of course, Ser Wertold. Take a seat. What's on your mind?"

Wertold sits himself down with unnecessary care, smoothing his robes over his knees and avoiding Carver's eye. "I ... Maker, I don't know where to start."

Ominous. Carver nods slowly. "The beginning's good. Usually."

"I don't want to bore you, ser." He lifts a gauntlet to his face, examines it for a moment, and drops it on one knee. "So, there's this mage."

Oh. "Go on," Carver says, pretty sure he knows where this is going.

"Her name's Anika. Anika Weiss. She has duties in the library. She's ... very kind." He pauses, clearly finding his words, and Carver lets him. "I like ... books, ser. So, when I spent time there, she and I would talk, a little, about things." He looks up, dark eyes clear and honest, and Carver thinks, _Please don't let this go the way I think it will._

"Okay," he says. He remembers Anika, a plump dumpling of a woman who smiles a lot, even smiles for Templars. An archivist, hardly enough magic in her to light a candle, but Harrowed all the same. Not exactly dangerous. One of the good ones.

"Recently she disappeared. And I checked in with the Duty Enchanter but it seems she's just _gone_." He shakes his head. "I think she escaped, but ... I know I should be angry about that. Really, though, I just want to know that she's well."

Ah. "We should get her back, if she did escape." He eyes Wertold, wondering. "Do you want to go looking for her?"

His face screws up. It looks like indecision. "I'm no Mage Hunter, ser."

"You're a Templar, all the same. A good one," he adds, because it's true, and, "a good man, too," because he is. "If you care about her, then better _you_ find her than some hunter with a grudge against mages." 

But that doesn't seem to cheer the boy much. He sits there chewing his lip, clearly unsure of himself. "And if I _should_ find her?"

Good question. _And you know what you should tell him._ But, all the same, it isn't like Anika's a _threat_. 

"You know your duty, Ser Wertold." He pitches it up, almost a question, and Wertold nods.

"To be the sword and shield of Andraste, and carry the Maker's Light into the darkness."

"And for mages?"

"To be their guard and guardian, ser." He says it so simply but that's it, that's the best Carver's ever heard it put. 

"Then what _would_ you do if you found her?"

Wertold considers it, but he's no longer chewing his lip. "Depends, ser. I wouldn't want to _make_ her come back, if she was all right. If she was safe."

Carver's pretty certain that's absolutely _not_ an answer he should accept. Still. "You're a Knight of the Order, Ser Wertold. Use your judgement. If you do go after her, that is."

Wertold nods. "Yes, ser. Thank-you, ser," he adds, with an edge of sincerity that makes Carver feel like maybe that was the right decision.

He worries, all the same. Wertold _is_ a good man, and a fine Templar. Carver regrets not having more time for him before now, but he's shaped up _well_ even without it. He pulls some of Barker's reports and Wertold's file, notes that Wertold has never been cited for unnecessary cruelty (or any cruelty at all), has always conducted himself honourably with mages, and with his squadmates. Good man. Good knight. Maker, Carver could do with a dozen of him.

 _And if he's in love with her?_ Well, Carver can't fault him for that, either, much as he knows he should. The rules are the rules, but life isn't that simple. He'll just have to trust that Wertold will do what's right, whatever that might turn out to be.

He dwells on it throughout the day, all the same, is still thinking about it in the afternoon when he's sat in the Duty Lieutenant's office being, well, the Duty Lieutenant. 

The idea is that a senior officer should be always available for recruits or knights or mages who need to unload themselves, and also that someone has to go over the schedules and assignments, making sure no-one's being overworked or overlooked or is taking advantage. Carver has always appreciated the Duty Lieutenant, someone to go to when you're not really sure where you're supposed to go, so he tries to be approachable, tries not to sigh too heavily when obvious problems with very obvious solutions are brought to him. He tells a recruit that yes, if she wants to try out as an archer, then she has every right, and another that no, just because they're both Fereldan doesn't mean Carver's going to intervene for him on a (perfectly fair) penance. A mage comes in to badger him about the Harrowing roster (Carver tells her it's none of her business) and a couple of junior knights want him to mediate a dispute over _soap_ , of all things, but all in all the day is dull, thoroughly so, and Carver's so tired that he's yawning into the palm of his gauntlet by the time the door opens to reveal Selwyn, rather excited, and far less excited when he sees Carver sitting behind the desk.

"Oh," Selwyn says. And then-- "Hullo, Knight Lieutenant."

He looks well, has looked well every time Carver's caught a glimpse of him since getting back. His robes are neatly pressed and very shiny, bright embroidery curling up the sides and down the sleeves. Mages are often lovely to look at, almost ornamental against the dull grey stone of the Gallows. Selwyn, though, is a gem, very handsome and so perfectly groomed that Carver feels shabby by comparison.

"Selwyn," he says, leaning back in his chair. It's obvious, from the flick of Selwyn's eyes, that he didn't come to see _Carver_. "Something wrong?"

For a moment the mage hesitates, and then he closes the door, coming up to lean nonchalantly against the desk. "How are you?"

Carver can't help but snort. "Don't pretend you were looking for me. What's up?"

"Nothing, nothing." Selwyn smiles, and he really does look well. Carver's glad, though he wonders. "I was expecting Ser Rochard to be here."

It's always weird to him how the mages ignore Templar ranks, demoting everyone to a nondescript 'Ser Such-and-such' unless they want to make a point of it. But Templars do the same, he supposes, every mage just 'Mage This' or 'Mage That' or just 'mage', regardless of whether they're an Enchanter or a Senior Enchanter or whatever. Cullen doesn't. Carver has tried not to, following his Captain's example. It seems only polite, after all.

"And?" When Selwyn just blinks at him, Carver goes on, bristling a little. "You know I _am_ the Duty Lieutenant. I can do anything _Rochard_ can do." 

Selwyn's smirk is far too suggestive. "Oh? He's Orlesian, you know. The things they say about Orlesians...such adventurousness and stamina."

Carver makes a face. "Ugh. Don't make me think about Rochard naked." He's _seen_ Rochard naked. And, admittedly, Rochard's fit, though somewhat ... under-endowed. Not that _that_ bothers him much -- better under than over -- and _ugh_ he's not _thinking_ about this.

"Oh? Something I should know about?" Selwyn hops up onto the desk, nearly but not quite overbalancing Carver's inkwell. "You do look tired. And quite pleased with yourself. Has good Ser Rochard been showing you the _Chemin D'amour_?"

Carver makes a worse face. "Don't. I don't want to know."

The low ripple of Selwyn's laughter is horrible, in that it's completely not horrible, it just makes Carver feel ... hunted. "If not Rochard, then who? You have a lover's look. And ... is that a bite mark?" He lifts his fingertips to his throat, just above his collar, peering at Carver curiously. Carver claps a hand to his neck, cheeks heating, and Selwyn makes a satisfied face. "So you _do_ have a lover. How _wonderful_."

Shit. Carver lowers his hand, self-conscious and pretty sure Selwyn tricked him. "If you're just going to be annoying, you can bugger off."

"I do like buggery," Selwyn sighs, smoothing his skirts. "But, alas, I seem to have been thwarted today." He makes no move to leave, just pokes about the desk, lifting papers he has no business looking at, until Carver gathers them all in a pile and drops a closed ledger on them.

"Make yourself useful, then," Carver says, racking his brain for something to give him. Hard work might chase him off. But then he thinks of Wertold, and -- oh. "Here, did you know Anika Weiss?"

Selwyn freezes, light eyes wide as he glances up. After a moment he seems to collect himself. "You said 'did'. Has something happened to her?"

"She's missing," Carver tells him, thinking Selwyn ought to know that already. "Escaped, they think."

Oddly, this doesn't seem to reassure him at all. "Oh. That. Yes, I knew her. I don't know where she is," he adds quickly, picking up a quill and twirling it around his thumb. "We weren't friends, precisely. We weren't anything."

"Was she happy, here?" Carver's not sure how to ask, or what to. "Listen, Selwyn, I just want to know if you think she's all right. Wherever she is."

He meets Carver's eye warily and holds it. "You always sound so sincere. It's unfair." Then he shrugs, glancing down at his hands. "None of us are _happy_ here, Ser Carver. Wherever she is, she's in a better place."

It sounds so ominous. Carver sits up straight. "Are you all right? Is someone bothering you." Harassing. He means _harassing_ but it's too late to change it. "I know Pereval's dead now, but--"

"Pereval?" Selwyn's mouth comes open. "Goodness, that was a while ago. I forgot you weren't here, then." He kicks his legs fitfully, and slides off the desk. "I'm _fine_. I don't need your protection. Such as it is."

It stings, and Carver can't help the edge in his voice. "Do you know anything about that? About Pereval."

"No," Selwyn says. "Except what everybody knows. He died in his room, overnight, and the Gallows is a little brighter for it. Of course, they lock us in all evening, and all night. Safer, that way. Mages are such a precious commodity," he says drily, tucking his hands behind him. "It's been lovely talking to you, but I must go. Poultices to brew. Some things never change."

"See you later, Selwyn," Carver tells him, and then he writes down everything Selwyn said in a report for Barker, feeling vaguely dishonest about it all.

* * *

Guilt, Merrill supposes, is what keeps her away. Hawke asks her to dine with him and she makes stammering apologies -- too busy, she says, too tired.

"You sleep so much these days," Hawke complains. "Why not come do it in my bed?" Merrill demurs and he frowns. "Is it Anders? I thought you two were getting along."

Getting along. How could he be so blind? Her weekly trips to the clinic aren't them _getting along_. Anders ignores her, mostly, or rather Justice does. Anders isn't really there anymore, only half-awake at the best of times. It's Justice healing the sick now, Justice's mage underground, Justice making plans while wearing Anders' face. Merrill can't stand it but she doesn't know what to do, so she goes down, lends what support she can to the elves and some of the humans too who come seeking healing and respite.

She thinks she hates Justice -- or rather Vengeance -- using Anders like this. She thinks Vengeance may not have intended this from the very beginning, but this is what the spirit has done all the same. _That_ she understands.

But guilt keeps her here also, guilt for what she has done, what she has not, what she has failed to do. Guilt ties her to Anders as surely as the magic stretched between them as fine and strong as silk.

He never brings it up when she visits him in the Fade. He is, she supposes, too grateful that she comes at all.

Because she had avoided him and his dreams, for months after the kiss and that ill-advised bond, and when she had gathered her courage to come again he had been _painfully_ grateful, as though he'd believed she had abandoned him. As if she could, while his every mood tingles fitfully in the back of her mind, as frail and weak as a candle in an open window. He missed her. She could _feel_ it. She couldn't abandon him. So she goes back to him and they do not kiss again but the memory of it hangs on them like a fat dangling spider.

She had never before imagined Anders afraid of anything, but in his dreams he _is_. Of being alone, of going mad, of fading away to nothing. Dying. Hawke. Her. Always (she knows now) of Templars.

And he _is_ dying. Little pieces of him slough away, lost to the Fade and Vengeance's insatiable hunger for him.

Merrill hates Vengeance so very much.

So when she finds him poring over a page of the manifesto in the dead of night, wearing Anders' body as though he has any right to it, she cannot help but confront him.

"Anders needs to sleep," she says, folding her arms beneath her breasts and glaring.

Vengeance looks up, and he has used Anders until he is so weary that it hurts to see the shadows beneath his eyes, the grey of his skin, how worn he is. Vengeance is not good at emotions, but he seems to be in the habit of faking them now, better and better at the masquerade of humanity he pretends to. Now he pretends to irritation. "I _am_ Anders," he says.

"You aren't at all," she tells him. _You don't fool me._ "You're just dressed in him. Let him rest. Mortal bodies wear out if they can't rest. It's unhealthy."

Vengeance regards her flatly but he stops pretending, and the blue creeps into his eyes, glowing beneath the surface of them. "It is none of your concern."

"If you say so. But it _should_ be _your_ concern. You lived in a corpse, before, isn't that right?" Anders has admitted as much, anyway. "Do you want to do that again? Because if you don't let him _rest_ that is what will happen." 

Though ... she isn't sure. If Anders did die -- her heart clenches at the thought, and she wills it away so she can remain firm -- Vengeance might die with him. Or simply be released into the world, needing a new host. She doesn't think he would be returned to the Fade, not when he's trapped outside of it like this. Though, she supposes eventually he would be, and reform himself into something new. True Justice, maybe. Or True Vengeance. The latter is a frightening concept. Merrill is not too proud to admit that she can be frightened by that, especially if Vengeance then persisted in following Hawke, a moth drawn into his flame.

Vengeance coils himself, magic gathering like a brewing storm. She cannot feel Anders inside him, sunk too deep just now, and she will _not_ hurt him but if Vengeance insists she will fight for the man buried in him. She has no other option.

 _Because I love him._ Because she must.

"Do you threaten me, witch?"

As though the word 'witch' would hurt her now. "If you hear a threat in that, it's only your own paranoia." She lets magic seep through her until she is suffused in it, but all she does is hold it, ready, unwilling to begin a thing when she cannot predict the outcome. Anders could be hurt. Vengeance doesn't seem to care, but _she_ does. If that makes her weak then so be it. "I'm only telling you the truth."

"You only lie, because you do not understand." Vengeance rises up out of his seat, magic weighing heavy in the air. "If you did then you would cease to consort with demons, and you would support us in this."

"In _what_?" She hears her voice go shrill but cannot stop it. "Your war against the Chantry? You will _kill him_. I won't allow it."

"Then you are in our way," Vengeance says, and she sees the magic gather to strike.

The barrier comes easily, snapping around her in a heavy bubble, a heartbeat before Vengeance casts something that makes the books on the shelves rattle. The force of it smothers her at once; the barrier holds but the air _boils_ like a storm at sea. The tempest breaks, forcing itself in on her. She braces herself; it thickens at once, and she holds against it but it takes all her strength.

Volumes peel from the shelves, thudding to the floor, their pages fluttering like the wings of birds. A bottle on the table shatters, scattering amber liquid into the fire, and that flares up like the magic burning in the air.

Her barrier holds. 

"Stop it!" Her voice sounds so shrill, but she can't help it. "Stop it at _once_!"

Vengeance does not so much as flinch, and she thinks, _I could overpower you, spirit, I could, all it would take is the slice of a knife and I could_ end _you_.

She may have to. Anders would never forgive her. Still, even if he _hates_ her, always, she may have to.

She reaches for her knife, and--

The door slams open. Hawke is in the doorway, clad only in his smallclothes and a night-robe that flares around him like the magic that spills from his fingers. "What the _fuck_ is going on?"

Instantly the tempest drops, but the threat of it is still there, ready to billow up and consume her. "Leave," Vengeance says, and the cracks of blue that streak across his skin make it clear enough who is in control that even Hawke has to see it.

But all Hawke does is stare at them, as if he doesn't understand what's at stake.

Poor Hawke. Merrill can't care for him, or what he wants. She lets her magic pool, holding the barrier strong, and her fingers close on the hilt of her knife.

"The witch defies us," Vengeance says, and Garrett's face .... oh, how he _bends_ to meet this. "She means to destroy us."

Hawke seems wrecked by this, his expression a ruin, as though they have, between them, ruined him. 

"Merrill," he says, he _says_ , and then -- " _Anders_. What are you _doing_?"

"Protecting us both," Vengeance says, ands he sounds so sincere, and Merrill can't bear it.

" _Hawke_ ," she pleads, hoping he might feel it beneath his ribs the way she herself feels it when Anders breathes words into her. "He's not Anders! He's ... he's a _travesty_ of Anders. Will you help me?"

He looks from one of them to the other, and again, and his hesitance is answer enough but he says, "I'm not choosing sides, if that's what you mean. What the void happened between you?" _I thought you two were getting along,_ goes unsaid, but Merrill feels it anyway.

"He _isn't Anders_ ," Merrill insists. "Hawke, you must know that. You're bonded, how could you not?"

His relief is obvious in the slump of his shoulders. "This, again. _Merrill_ ," and he fixes her with a look that is one part resignation and one part disappointment. "I know you don't like it, but Justice is part of Anders now and--"

"Killing him," she finishes. Hawke frowns, opening his mouth, but she won't let him interrupt her this time. " _Look_ at him. Will you look?"

He doesn't even pretend to. "You don't understand."

How _angry_ this makes her. " _You're_ the one who doesn't understand. We need to separate them, _now_ , before it's too late." How can he seem so unconvinced? Can't he _see_? "Now, Hawke," she insists, drawing her knife. "This was the plan, always. We're running out of time."

"We don't know _how_ ," Hawke protests, his hands coming up in entreaty, and now he crosses the floor, reaching for her, but the barrier stops him. "If we do it too soon--"

But she cuts him off, furious with him. "If we do it too late there won't be enough of Anders left to save!"

"I _am_ Anders," Vengeance growls, and just like that the tempest rises, magic gathering like lightning to strike.

Merrill puts the knife-blade in her palm. "That's a _lie_!" and she _cuts_.

But Hawke billows; the air _thunders_ , and Merrill rocks back on her heels, the barrier sundered and her ears ringing with the weight of whatever it is Hawke cast between them.

" _Enough!_ " He's done something to his voice, made himself bigger than himself, a giant swelling up to the rafters, and the heavy fall of that one word strikes her like a stone.

In that moment it seems as though their magic catches against itself, the three strains of it tangling into a mess ready to explode, but Hawke does _something_ to syphon it off, channelling it into the floor at his feet. There's an almighty bang and the whole house shakes, things falling to the floor. A picture slides down the wall and breaks, the frame coming apart in pieces. The fire bursts from its grate, coals spilling across the hearth. And a crack opens up the wall of the study, running from floor to ceiling and stopping just short of the cornice above.

In the silence that follows Hawke seems to deflate, coming back to himself, just a man, a human, looking ashamed of himself and so weary.

"Enough," he says again, wiping a hand over his eyes. "I can't bear it if you fight."

He's so grey-faced that Merrill wants to go to him but the threat of Vengeance is ever-present, so she holds her breath, waiting to see what the spirit will do.

But Vengeance wavers, collapsing against a chair, and Hawke is on him in an instant, arms going around his torso to try and hold him up. "Anders," he says, and then more frantically, " _Anders_."

When those eyes open again they are brown, and Merrill breathes out. He's there, she can feel it, and he's so bewildered it breaks her heart to see it.

"What happened? Did I," and his eyes widen as he takes in the destruction. "Maker's _smalls_ , did I do that?"

The door is flung open again but this time it is only Bodahn in a nightshirt, looking terrified, and Sandal (in nothing at all) peering over his shoulder with vague curiosity. Merrill pushes past them, ignoring Bodahn's wavering enquiries, and races up the stairs to her room.

There she stops, catches her breath, and _oh_ , the little clay pots on her shelf are still intact, still bound. No demons set loose to ravage the night.

Then, that is well.

But the rest.

Hawke can't be trusted to make this decision, she thinks, heart and mind racing. Maybe he never could be. He loves the spirit that lives inside Anders too well, and she won't rely on him anymore to make the right choice.

So. It is up to her. She nods, her hands shaking, the cut on her palm already closed. She can do this. She _will_.

 _Even if Anders hates me forever_ , she tells herself, _I'm the only one willing to do what has to be done._


	36. Chapter 36

Dinners with Cullen run late now, and Carver finds himself yawning through his mornings-after. No-one questions it much, because it's clear to everyone that Carver is Cullen's Lieutenant, and they're expected to spend time on Gallows business together. The fact that they do a lot of it lounging on Cullen's bed with reports scattered about them on the covers isn't something anyone else needs to know.

And, of course, Cullen lets Carver kiss him as much as he wants, which is fucking incredible. Carver can simply lean over, catch his fingers under Cullen's chin and tug him in, and Cullen will meet him halfway, kissing him sweetly before licking his way into Carver's mouth and sucking on his lip.

The kisses are good. Better than good, they're amazing. Carver still can't quite believe it sometimes, opens his eyes to find Cullen just gazing at him with this painfully smitten look on his face that ought to be ridiculous but really, really isn't. And Cullen holds him close, will furl him in his arms and sigh into his hair, let Carver lean up on his chest and tangle their limbs together until they're like a dish of noodles. 

But. Every time things get heated, or if Carver puts his hand in the wrong place (he's still not entirely sure where those places are) Cullen will sigh or pull away, or pull away _and_ sigh, and then he puts distance between them until Carver can wheedle his way back in. He knows Cullen _wants_ him. Sometimes it's the evidence of that pressed up against Carver's leg that makes Cullen pull away, he thinks, as if Cullen's embarrassed to be caught doing something so indecorous as _have an erection_.

It's strange, and a little frustrating, and reminds Carver of girls at harvest who'd let you kiss them and put your hands around their waists but if you edged too high up they'd slap you off and that was the end of it. But that's because they were saving themselves for a husband, and that can't... possibly be ... Maker's _balls_ , is that it?

Carver thinks about it, probably more than he should. He knows Cullen. He's a gentleman, with manners better than any nobleman Carver's ever met. He's righteous. And he believes in the Maker in a way Carver's never been able to, believes in Andraste, believes in the Chant. No doubt he believed the things the Chantry sisters said about 'manly self-restraint' and which Carver had ignored because, well, Garrett had scoffed so hard.

"Father told me that manly self-restraint just leads to unexpected messes," he'd said. "Nothing to be ashamed of in taking matters into your own hands." And later, when Carver was older, Garrett had extended that philosophy to cover letting someone _help_ you take matters into your own hands.

But if Cullen had believed it...

The idea that his Knight Captain might be pure-as-the-driven-snow virginal is at once preposterous and beguiling. Carver watches him carefully for signs, and eventually Cullen throws down his pen, exasperated.

"Carver, I _cannot_ finish this recommendation if you keep staring at me. Please, just tell me now if I have ink on my face."

Carver opens his mouth and then stops, embarrassed. 'I was just wondering if you're a virgin' isn't something you can just say to someone. And all at once he feels terrible for wondering it in the first place. It's none of his business, is it? Except ... well, he sort of thinks it is, in a way.

"No," he says, "No ink. Am I allowed to like the look of you, ser? Because if not, it's a bit late."

Cullen's mouth quirks up, his cheeks reddening the way they do whenever Carver says something nice to him. Carver doesn't think enough nice things get said to him by people who actually mean it, whose opinion he cares for. Which is sad, really. Cullen deserves lots of nice things.

Like ... someone sucking him off, first thing in the morning when he's too sleepy to do anything but lie there and enjoy it.

Carver slaps himself mentally. _No. Stop thinking about it. It's not fair if he doesn't want to._

So he tries very, very hard not to think about it, even when Cullen puts his recommendations aside and stretches his arms above his head and asks Carver to bring the rest of the wine bottle over to the bed.

Cullen props the pillows up so they can lie half against the headboard. "No more Gallows business," he says, pulling Carver against his chest.

"What if it's funny Gallows business?" Carver asks, propping his wine glass on his belly. 

Cullen takes the wine glass from him and sets it on the bedside table. "Do you have any like that?"

Carver rolls over to look him in the eye. "Someone iced the recruits' washwater. They were cussing like sailors this morning."

"Sounds like an apprentice," Cullen says with a smile. "They prank the recruits because they can get away with it. It's harmless, for the most part. Are you going to punish them?"

Carver snorts. "That's _boring_ Gallows business, ser. The funny part was the icing." Anyway, Carver never really punishes the apprentices for anything. Like Cullen says, they're largely harmless.

He props himself up to admire the softness of Cullen's features now they are alone together and can be soft with one another. He's so handsome, with those warm honey-brown eyes and such a very Fereldan look to him that it makes Carver homesick, sometimes. He's met men like Cullen before, or men with his face. The Hawkes lived for six months in a small village on the edge of a small bannorn, when Carver was young enough to think there might be no harm in playing with the Bann's children on the banks of the river. The eldest of them -- what was his name? -- had this same cast to his features, the same shape, though he had been as dark-haired and dark-eyed as Carver's siblings. 

And he'd been the one who saw it, when Garrett disturbed that wild sow and threw up a barrier out of instinct. He'd been the one they ran from, convinced he'd tell his mother and that the Templars would be all over them by nightfall.

Maybe they'd been wrong to run. Carver remembers the shock in the young lordling's face, and at the time he'd been convinced they were doomed, but now? Well, they'll never know, now.

Cullen smiles at him, carding his fingers through Carver's hair as though petting a favourite Mabari. "What is it, love? You've been so quiet tonight. It's unlike you."

"Just thinking," Carver says, pushing himself up to catch Cullen's mouth and claim it. Cullen leans into him, sneaking an arm under to pull him up until they are chest-to-chest, kissing Carver with such warmth that, for a wonderful few moments, Carver forgets himself.

And then he realises he's _on_ Cullen, and remembers that Cullen may not like that, so he tries to angle himself away, not wanting to press the evidence of his interest anywhere Cullen doesn't want it.

He thinks he's subtle about it right up until Cullen leans back, licking his lips but looking troubled. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Carver tells him, though he supposes it's a lie. "Nothing important."

Cullen frowns. "Truly? Normally," he says, making a smile of his mouth, though there's a tentativeness to it that Carver doesn't like, "you're like a limpet. With limbs."

Normally Carver would smile back at him, would make much of that as a pun, but tonight he can't. "You don't like it. So I won't, anymore."

Cullen looks stricken, but he does not let Carver go. "I do like it," he says quietly. "I'm sorry if I made you think I didn't."

"But you always stop," and Carver didn't mean for this to come up, but that it now has he _has_ to. "I don't want you to feel ... like you have to let me."

"Oh," Cullen says, and then, " _Carver_ ," he breathes, stroking Carver's hair. "I don't ... I _do_ like this, what we do. I am only reluctant to," and he falters, fingers stilling in Carver's hair, his eyes gone so distant that it hurts Carver to look at him. "I will not hurt you, to slake my thirst for you."

Carver doesn't know what to say, but he must say _something_. "You won't, though. Ser, I know you wouldn't," but Cullen is sitting himself up, his hand gone into a tight fist, propped on Carver's shoulder. Worse, his face has gone tight too, this awful clench of his features as though he is in pain, and Carver hates it, hates that it has come to this, wishes he could take it back.

"I might. To have of you what ... what I must admit to myself that I want."

It makes no sense. Carver sits up, tucking his legs under him, and he'd reach for Cullen if it looked at all like Cullen might allow it. It does not, so Carver does not. Instead-- "Tell me. I can take it, I swear."

Cullen breathes out, and he will not meet Carver's eye. "I wish ... that I could have you. Beneath me. That you would welcome it if I ... but even if you did," and his eyes cut up, sorrowful and wounded, and Carver puts a hand on his thigh just to touch him because he looks _so_ hurt. "I do not wish you to suffer for me."

"I wouldn't," Carver protests, his hand pulling Cullen's trousers into a ruck. "If you want what I think," and he's pretty sure he knows what Cullen wants, "then I want it _too_. It's not suffering. It feels _good_." When someone's careful about it, or if you love them enough. But he doesn't say that, just tightens his grip until Cullen's trousers are in danger of tearing.

Cullen looks unconvinced, and he says, "Forgive me, but I cannot see how that could be so."

"Then you've never had it done right," Carver says, feeling bold now that they're on familiar ground. "Have you ever? Done it, I mean."

"I've ... accepted it," Cullen says, his face gone red and his eyes still not meeting Carver's. "It has been done to me. And it was unpleasant. I would not wish that on you, no matter how willing you claim to be."

Claim to be. Like he _doubts_ him. Carver feels the sharp edge of indignation, and it gives him the confidence to say, "I am willing and I _do_ want it, and you're wrong, ser. You're so wrong I can't ... it's _good_." He takes a breath, frowning into Cullen's startled face. "For me, anyway. Don't tell me how I feel about something when you don't _know_."

Cullen stares, but he nods, slowly, as though he still doesn't believe it. "As you say. I'm sorry to have upset you so."

It's a start, but it's not enough. "Ser," Carver says, and he pushes his hand up to slide over Cullen's belly, still hidden beneath his shirt. "I think ... maybe I know more about this than you do. About making it good. And if you'll let me," he adds, feeling sure about this, "I'll show you how it can be. Good, I mean, with no-one _suffering_." He swallows, his certainty faltering. "If you want. Only if you want, ser."

Cullen closes his eyes, wrenching them shut, and Carver _hates_ that so much. "Very well," he says, however. He blinks his eyes open, and they are so warm in the lamplight that Carver wants to kiss them. "You may have of me anything you wish."

That's still not right. "I don't want _that_ , ser," he says, brave enough to lift his hand to Cullen's cheek and stroke him there. "Just ... something we'll both like. And if you don't like it I'll stop. All you have to do is say."

"All right," and Cullen smiles, and it's so _trusting_ that Carver can barely stand it. "Please, Hawke. If you will show me."

"You have to promise you'll say if you don't like it," Carver insists. "I want your _word_." Because if he knows anything about Cullen it's that he will never forsake his word.

"You have it. I swear." Cullen leans back against the pillows, too tense and too anxious, but Carver can see how he tries to smile. "Tell me what to do."

"Just kiss me back," Carver says, leaning in to press the lightest of kisses on Cullen's lip. Cullen opens for him at once, soft and compliant, and that's not quite right but it's a start. Carver kisses him, again and again, moving up over him to settle between his thighs. Cullen allows this, his hands coming up warm on Carver's back, and Carver reaches for him, smoothing his palms over Cullen's shoulders, running them up to knot in Cullen's hair.

It's so good to touch him like this, incredible when he permits it, does not pull away, lets Carver kiss him and _kiss_ him. And he returns it heartily, now he has committed to this course of action, delving into Carver's mouth, his hands gathering fistfuls of Carver's shirt in the hollow of his back.

The shirt needs to go -- Carver wants Cullen's skin on his skin -- so he kneels up, pulling the thing free of his trousers and tugging it off over his head. He's unprepared for the, " _Oh_ ," that punches its way from Cullen's lungs, the way his eyes blow open like dandelions, and the sudden jerk of his hands as they wrench away.

"All right?" Carver asks, self-conscious.

Cullen takes a breath. "I didn't know," he says, so low it's almost a whisper, and he's _staring_.

It takes the brush of Cullen's fingers against the ink in Carver's skin for him to understand. "Oh. Yeah. Those." Cullen traces the edges of a sunburst, so gingerly it makes Carver grin. "It won't come off on you," he teases. "You can touch them."

"There's so many," Cullen says, as though awed by it. "Wait, let me see."

Carver permits himself to be examined, and Cullen catalogs each tattoo as if it's precious, or dangerous, which makes him feel ... he isn't sure. "Do you hate them, ser?"

"Not at all," Cullen protests. He touches the sunburst, the flaming sword, the Starkhaven crest, the feathered wingtips of the hawk across his shoulders -- Carver has to lean over for him to see. "No Kirkwall crest? Or is it," and he hesitates, eyes dipping down.

Carver shakes his head. "I don't have one of those. I think ... I'd like one, though. Now I'm home."

Cullen nods, his fingers skittering restlessly in the space just above the waist of Carver's trousers, as if Carver is too hot to touch for too long. "I am not so decorated," he says, in a quiet, shameful sort of way. "I have never really understood the urge."

"I like 'em. It's ... good, getting marked for things. Like ... reminders, of when something happened." Ones that will only fade so much, and that he'll carry with him to the grave.

"What sort of things?"

"Well ... the sword was for when Hugh was knighted. He got the same, and so did Rue. And we all got sunbursts when Pax was knighted." He moves on from that at once, not wanting to think about it now. "This, though, was when they made me Knight Lieutenant, and two of my corporals got one too. And the hawk was just because." He eyes Cullen for a moment, considering. "The first, though, I got at Ostagar. We all did." And most of those men are dead now. Carver might be the last.

"Which is that?" Cullen asks, eyes tracking over Carver's exposed skin, and Carver grins.

"You can't see it, with my trousers on."

It's amusing how Cullen's face twitches, as if he's caught between curiosity and dismay.

"Do you want to see it?"

Cullen hesitates. "If you wish to show it me."

Hah. Well, then. Carver twists around, and he fumbles his trouser fastenings, fingers gone clumsy now that he needs them to be sure. Still, he gets them open, tugs his pants down under the cheek of his arse, and glances back over his shoulder to see what Cullen thinks of it.

His face is _hilarious_ , and then he _laughs_ , one hand over his mouth and the other coming up to brush Carver's skin. Maybe once upon a time Carver would have taken that all wrong, but now, seeing how hard Cullen tries to smother himself while his eyes crinkle above his palm, Carver can't do anything except grin.

"A _mabari_ , Carver?" Cullen gasps, when he has collected himself sufficiently to speak. "Really? Could you not, perhaps, have chosen ... _anything_ else?"

"It's for strength," Carver tells him, swinging his hips out of reach, and then he's on his knees facing Cullen again, trousers sitting low around his hips, barely covering anything of importance. "There. That's all of them."

Cullen shakes his head, but he can't shake his smile. "Oh, Carver. Of course. No, it all makes sense."

"Does that mean you like the tattoos, then?"

He nods, biting his lip, and then he has his collar in his hands, has tugged his shirt off over his head and tossed it on the floor, and he reaches for Carver.

That's _good_.

Carver goes to him, settles down on his chest, and when he kisses Cullen now it's different. Cullen winds him in close, his hands roaming over Carver's back, and boldly down to tuck his hands under the curve of Carver's arse and _that_ takes Carver by surprise but he's not stupid enough to let on.

He pushes Cullen down into the mattress, dragging himself against Cullen's hips and _Cullen presses back_ , and Carver can feel him, hard now in his trousers.

Maker, knowing that _does_ things to him; he groans open-mouthed against Cullen's jaw, and Cullen _does it again_ , pulling Carver down to meet him. Carver presses his lips to Cullen's throat. He can feel the flutter of Cullen's pulse, like a bird caught beneath his skin, and he kisses it, licks it, would put his teeth to it if he thought Cullen would let him.

Though, Cullen lets him now do anything he wants, and Carver makes free with him, mouthing his skin, tonguing the ridge of bone where his collar sits, the hollow at his throat. He feels out Cullen's belly, tracing the firm muscle beneath his hair-dusted skin. Every sound Cullen makes sparks something in his blood that makes him throb deep down in his gut, and he makes so many, these little guttural noises like Carver's hurting him only he isn't, is he?

He forces himself to pull away, his breath gone hard and deep, and Cullen blinks up at him in a daze, as though he can't quite understand what Carver is doing.

"All right?" Carver asks, palming Cullen's cheek just to touch him somewhere innocent, as if that might help.

Cullen blinks at him, still so scattered that Carver thinks, _Should I stop?_

But Cullen's hands tighten on Carver's flesh, and then he is groping at Carver's trousers, his brow drawn down into a frown. 

"Take these off," he demands, the hard edge of command in his voice, and Carver scrambles to obey, shoving the useless things down and kicking them away, his smalls too. Now he's naked, and the hard rake of Cullen's eyes makes him shiver because _that_ is not the look of a man who means to leave Carver unravished. No, Cullen gazes at him as though he means to _devour_ him and, _fuck_ , Carver wants to be devoured.

_Anything, ser, anything you want._

It seems to take Cullen an effort to meet Carver's eye, but when he does his colour is high and his mouth wet, red-kissed and full, and Carver has to remember to breathe as Cullen unfastens his own trousers and shoves them down around his thighs.

Maker. He's hard, beautifully so, red-gold curls gathered at his crotch and furring his thick thighs, and Carver licks his lips because he _wants_ that, and it takes all the restraint he has not to just bow his head and swallow him down.

Maybe this is what Cullen was thinking when he--

The thought goes unfinished, Cullen lifting his chin and regarding Carver down the length of his nose. "Do I pass inspection?"

"Fucking _void_ , do you," Carver groans, and then he's clawing at Cullen's trousers, just wanting them off him right _now_ , and no, this isn't how he meant this to go, he'd meant to do this _slow_ and, and, and it doesn't matter because Cullen hisses, catching Carver's shoulder and flipping him onto his back, coming down over him like a hot blanket. 

"The way you look at me," he says quietly, low down in Carver's ear, and his breath is hot like his skin. "I have never seen such frank invitation. I begin to believe that you do indeed wish to be had in the way you claim."

"I do," Carver insists, and Cullen is _naked_ against him, chest to his chest, thighs between his thighs, the sweet heat of him sliding dry and soft-skinned against Carver's hip. He kicks up a foot to hook around Cullen's thigh, drawing him down until they're pressed up against one another, and Cullen makes a deep sound in his throat, as though it's all too much to bear.

But he keeps Carver pinned to the bed, his lips close enough to tickle the lobe of Carver's ear. "How you could want it ... such a beastial thing. If I were to hold you prone and take from you, would you still ask for it?"

Carver's mouth goes dry. "I'd beg you for it," he confesses, jacking his hips up, looking for friction.

Cullen rocks against him once and stills again, finding Carver's hands and trapping them against the bed. "Even as I entered you? Would you beg for that?"

Carver can't think. "Yes," he says, arching up against Cullen's hips. "Yes, ser, please."

It makes Cullen groan, his mouth dropping to Carver's throat, and Carver feels the bite of his teeth. "Should I mount you like an animal, then? Rut into you and--" He breaks off, burying his face in Carver's neck and thrusting against him. Carver gasps and Cullen does it again, and Carver has gone without long enough that it spurs him right to the edge.

" _Yes_ ," he groans, " _please_ , ser, you can, you can fuck me, Maker, I want--"

Cullen makes a wretched noise, pushing himself up until his weight is on Carver's hips, and he doesn't stop moving, just rocks up against him, and he's beautiful, so fucking beautiful here between Carver's thighs. Maker, Carver won't ever let him _leave_.

"Let me touch you," Carver begs, tugging his sword hand against Cullen's deathgrip and Cullen lets him go, eyes squeezed shut now as if he can't bear to look at him. It doesn't matter. Carver wraps his hand around them both and, _oh_ , that's good, that's too good, that's too _much_.

He breaks, shuddering, and the relief is like coming up for air. The pleasure of it wrecks him, turns him to useless taffy, but he shifts his grip, fingers coiling around Cullen and holding him snug. Cullen thrusts into his palm, eyes still wrenched shut, and when he spends he does it in a sort of slow dissolve -- his mouth comes open, loosing tiny hurt gasps, and then he trembles all over so violently, fucking the tight ring of Carver's fingers in sharp jerks as if he is beyond control until, finally, he spills, and the noise torn from his throat sounds like a curse. 

He's still trembling. Carver wipes his hand on the covers before smoothing it up Cullen's flank. "Hey," he breathes, hating how his voice breaks on it. " _Hey_. Cullen."

Cullen makes a low noise, and he won't look up. He seems on the verge of collapse but he pushes himself away, backing up to sit on his heels, head turned to the side. He looks ... Maker, is he _ashamed_?

"Cullen," Carver says again, but Cullen covers his face with one hand, shoulders slumping as he turns away to swing his feet to the floor. For a horrible moment Carver thinks he's going to _leave_ but all he does is lean his elbows on his knees and press his face into his palms, still quivering. 

"Ser!" Carver can't stand it, he's struggling up on limbs too sex-lazy to obey him, and he doesn't know what to do. If it were Fenris--

It _isn't_ Fenris. It's Cullen, and he isn't weeping but Carver thinks he might be close. _How did I do this to him?_

He puts a hand on Cullen's back and Cullen does not shy away, all he does is shiver beneath it. All right. Carver runs his hand the length of Cullen's spine, heart beating like it's going to burst, and if Cullen throws him off he doesn't know if he can take it.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I don't know what I did wrong, but ... tell me. I won't do it again, I promise, I'll just ... I don't know, but _please_ , ser." He stops there because Cullen has twisted around to stare at him, mouth slack with what can only be horror.

"Nothing, Hawke. Nothing, you--" He swallows, blinking hard. "You have never done me any wrong. Not in this, or any thing. But _I_ ," and he puts such venom into that word that Carver flinches from it, "am a _monster_."

"What?" Carver can feel his face screw up in confusion. " _How?_ "

"Do not pretend in order to spare my feelings." Cullen swallows again, and he's so pale Carver thinks he might be going to sick up. "I have no excuse. To speak to you so ... and I meant it. If you had not intervened I believe I would have done it." He shudders, dragging a hand over his eyes, and that's _it_ , just _no_.

"So you didn't like any of that? It was all horrible, then?" Cullen just stares at him and, urgh, Carver's too sticky for this conversation. He finds Cullen's trousers and goes through the pockets for, there, a fucking handkerchief. "Because it wasn't horrible for me. I thought it was _good_. And I can't sit here and listen to you blame yourself for something that didn't even happen, that I _told you_ I wanted. You don't have to do it," he adds, fixing Cullen with a glare. "You don't _ever_ have to do it. But stop telling me I don't want it when I _know_ what I want. And if you'd done it?" he adds, tossing the sodden handkerchief on the floor. "This terrible thing you're so worried about? I'd have fucking _loved_ it."

Somewhere in all that Cullen's expression shifts from something awful to something softer, and now he reaches out, catching Carver's arm and squeezing it. "I'm sorry."

"For what _now_?"

He sounds ashamed of himself again, but this time he says, "For being ... unreasonable. And doubting you. It _was_ good. That is why," and he sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I didn't want it to be good. I didn't want to think about how it could be if I gave in. I've spent _so long_ telling myself ... but it hardly matters now." 

"No," Carver says, "tell me."

He shakes his head. "That to give in would mean the demon had won."

Oh. It makes sense, in the way that it completely shouldn't. Carver licks his lips, thinking it over. " _I'm_ not a demon, though."

Cullen takes a deep breath and looks Carver in the eye, and he's so _sorry_ Carver can hardly be mad at him. "I know you are not. I _know_ that. But you call to me and I _want_ you so powerfully. Can you forgive me?"

"Maybe. If you come down here." He leans back on the pillow, holding out a hand, and hoping Cullen won't resist. "Please?"

He comes down, and he's quiet in Carver's arms for a while as Carver strokes his hair.

Eventually-- "Are you certain I will not hurt you?"

"You gunna believe me this time?"

"I swear to you, I will not doubt you again."

Carver snorts. "You always have to be so melodramatic about everything. Just say, 'yes'."

There's some movement as Cullen pushes himself up to look Carver in the eye, and his expression is so naked Carver feels it like a lump in his throat. "Yes."

"Then yeah, I'm pretty sure."

Cullen nods, very solemn, and then he says, "In that case, I should like to try."

Carver takes a moment to process this. "Now?"

"If you wish it. Or another time, I don't--"

Carver squeezes him. "We can. Now. Like the way you said?"

"Is there another way?" Cullen asks, so frank in his ignorance that Carver wants to kiss him.

So he kisses him. And then he kisses him some more, carefully, holding Cullen's jaw in both palms to keep him still.

He thinks he gets it. Cullen doesn't want to be the monster he thinks the demon made of him. And he thinks all this is some base, animal thing that he should be above, but he can't help wanting it all the same, and hating himself for that. He grips Carver's shoulders, his hips, and then he _stops_ , making fists of his hands and clutching them to his chest or his thigh as if afraid of leaving bruises.

"You can touch me," Carver tells him, but Cullen shakes his head. Carver _thinks_ he gets it. "I can tie your hands to the bed, if you want." He's joking, mostly, but Cullen gives him such a sharp look that he sits up. "Do you want that?"

Cullen looks torn, but he nods, lying back and putting his hands together above his head. "Please."

So Carver does, lashing him to the bedframe with the sash of his night-robe, and then Carver kisses every bit of Cullen he can reach, which turns out to be nearly all of him. Cullen makes weak noises, and he strains against his bonds, but he will not let Carver take them off. He groans when Carver licks him below, cries out when Carver sucks him, but he does not close his eyes or look away, and finally, when Carver straddles his hips, he watches Carver slick them both, his eyes gone dark and avid. There's no oil so Carver uses a stamina potion, and it's a little rough but the sound Cullen makes when Carver sinks onto him is so worth it. 

"Carver," he breathes, "oh my Maker, you ..."

"Good?"

"Yes, please, don't _stop_."

Carver doesn't stop, not when Cullen shakes and jerks beneath him, not even when he's quiet again, not until Carver's worked out his own climax, thighs shuddering with the effort to hold himself up. 

"Carver," Cullen begs, flexing his fingers, "please, I must," and when Carver looses him Cullen wraps him in both arms and refuses to let go. "I love you so," he says, shaking like a leaf.

"I know," Carver tells him. "Me too, for you."

It's a long time before Cullen releases him, lets him get washwater and a towel, and then they twine together beneath the covers, damp and sweaty, and Carver thinks, _This is it, I can do this._ He deserves this, doesn't he? Or is that exactly the kind of thought the Maker punishes you for?

"A question," Cullen says softly, kissing up behind Carver's ear. He's so gentle now, and he keeps touching the bruises at his wrists and looking at them. "You're friends with Sebastian Vael, yes?"

"I _know_ him." Carver refuses to think about Sebastian Vael when he has naked Cullen plastered along his back. He can feel Cullen nestled soft against his arse. Fuck Sebastian Vael to the _void_.

"Not friends, then?"

"He's all right, as far as it goes. We're friendly," he amends, because Starkhaven and the wedding, and now Sebastian isn't quite as twattish as he'd used to seem. "Why?" He smirks over his shoulder. "Should I be jealous?"

"No, never." Cullen kisses his hair. "I wondered about his intentions toward Starkhaven."

"Meredith asked me that once. Wait." He rolls all the way around -- annoying because he'd been comfortable, dammit -- to look Cullen in the eye. "Is this politics? Are you talking politics in _bed?"_

"I was reminded," Cullen says softly, touching Carver's cheek, "of how dangerous this is. A prince of Starkhaven could be a valuable ally, when the time comes."

He means Meredith. Carver considers it. "When we were in Starkhaven, I witnessed him renounce his claim to the crown. I mean, I _witnessed_ it. I had to sign."

"Oh?" Cullen makes him explain, and then makes him explain again in as much detail as he can. "And you're certain he signed it 'Brother Sebastian' not 'Sebastian of Starkhaven'?"

"Is it important?"

"It might be. Will you ask him about it?"

"If you want me to." Carver hesitates, searching Cullen's face. He seems lazily sated, affectionate and sweet and perfectly fine, but... "Everything okay?"

"Mmm." Cullen catches Carver's hand, brings Carver's fingertips to his mouth. "Very well."

"And it's going to be okay?"

"Everything will be fine, so long as we're together," Cullen promises, and he sounds so sincere that Carver can't help believing him.

* * *

It's Isabela who says it first, casually over cards at Varric's table. "So, puppy's back from Starkhaven. Have you seen him?"

Fenris stops. He realises he is staring at her and frowns, looking down at his cards but the pips swim before his eyes, meaningless.

It is Hawke, though, who answers her. "What? Since when?"

"A fortnight or so," Varric says. He shrugs, dealing Isabela a card for the one she throws out. "I had it from Gamlen. I'm surprised he didn't tell you."

Hawke seems distracted, fiddling with a coin, and Fenris ... feels nothing. He refuses to feel it, in any case, walling it up behind his ribs.

"I haven't seen Gamlen in a while," Hawke says quietly. "So, he's well then?"

"Gamlen?"

"My brother," Hawke snaps, tossing the coin into the pot. "Give me another, Varric."

Varric does so silently. After a pause, Isabela says, "Fit as a fiddle, by the look of him. Not skint, either -- he bought me drinks."

"And I suppose you paid him back in the usual way?" It's too sharp, and Hawke seems to regret it at once. "With flirting, I mean."

Isabela chuckles. "Oh, you've never got over the time I polished his sword for him, have you?" This gets her a pained sound, which only makes her worse. "That was _one time_ , Hawke. Well, technically it was two, but--"

" _Please_ don't."

Varric clears his throat. "Elf?" Fenris looks up. The dwarf is watching him.

"What?" he demands. Does Varric expect him to have an opinion on this?

But all he does is smile and say, "It's your turn."

Oh. Fenris looks at his cards and ... no, he cannot do this. "I fold," he says, laying them on the table. "I must go."

"What? But I was _winning_ , sweet thing, you can't just go when I'm winning."

"Maybe that's _why_ he's going, Rivaini."

"Well, that's hardly fair, now, is it?"

Fenris ignores them, sweeps up what's left of his coin and pockets it. Not that there was much to begin with; he gambles only the money they can spare, and there isn't much of that. Orana keeps tight purse-strings now and Tully is always needing _something_.

"I will come again," he says, to everyone and no-one. Varric nods and wishes him well, but Isabela is busy pretending to sulk and Hawke too caught up in his own worries.

The stairs to Hightown are as steep and dark as always, the air as foetid, the noise of the city by night a sawblade on the nerves, but Fenris drifts through it all as though walking through smoke. He feels ... no, he feels _nothing_ , refuses to feel anything, but his mind whirrs like a pinwheel in a high wind, thoughts too fast and too large to fit.

He thinks: _Carver is back in Kirkwall._ He thinks: _I have wished for this._ He thinks: _I had given him up for lost._. He does not know what to do.

It is late but the Chantry is always open. He tells the Duty Sister he is here for Brother Sebastian, and she tuts but she sends for him. Fenris has come to the Chantry before, to fetch Tully or deliver him, and Sebastian has made no secret of their friendship.

Now he comes, still robed, with a smudge on his cheek that lends him an air of domesticity that Fenris feels is false. Sebastian, no matter his service to the poor, is hardly domestic. He is still too refined a thing, too proud and precious, reeking of incense and good breeding.

And too handsome. He smiles, clasping Fenris' arm. "My friend. Come have tea with me."

It is liquorice tea with mint, and it is sweet, and Fenris should be grateful for the hospitality, so he says as much.

Sebastian sighs as he breathes in the steam. "A gift from a friend in Starkhaven." His eyes are bright when he trains them on Fenris, his smile welcoming here in a private Chantry study. "What brings you to me? You seem thoughtful."

That is the trouble, Fenris supposes. He is too full of thoughts, has a surfeit of them, and cannot contain them. "Did you know that Carver Hawke is returned to Kirkwall?"

This seems to surprise him. "I confess I did not. You've seen him?"

"No. I only heard it from Isabela tonight." Fenris cradles the cup in his palms, letting the warmth seep into his fingers. "I am conflicted."

"How so?" He says it gently, his 'Brother Sebastian' voice. Between that and the tea, Fenris finds words come more easily and that, perhaps, is intentional.

"I told you once I meant to go after him, and you advised me against it." Sebastian opens his mouth, then closes it again, clearly waiting for Fenris to go on. "I defied you, and the Maker. And Tully fell ill. So I swore to your god that I would not go after him, if it would keep Tully safe." Fenris tastes his tea. The sweetness of the liquorice blooms in his mouth and lingers there, filling his head with the scent of it. "But now he has come here, and I wonder if it would break my word were I to speak to him and make my apologies."

"Fenris," Sebastian says, gentle still but now so sad. "The Maker did not cause Tully's illness to punish you."

"Because it is not in the Maker's power?" Fenris asks, feigning innocence.

Sebastian frowns. "It is not in the Maker's _nature_ to do so. He would not harm a child because of a wrong you had done to Him."

"Then, your Maker simply allowed Tully to sicken," Fenris says, tired of this debate, "and nearly die, while other children sickened and died. But Tully was saved. Was that the Maker's will? Or was it Anders?"

"The Maker works through us," Sebastian says evenly. "It was certainly the Maker's will that Anders save Tully's life."

"And there, we come back to it. The Maker spared him. Because I swore an oath? And if so, should I break that oath, will the Maker take back His mercy?"

It seems too much for Sebastian; the priest sighs, rubbing his temple wearily. "Do you ask me my opinion of the theology of it? Or my opinion as your friend?"

Fenris snorts. "I already know your opinion as a friend -- you think I should not do it."

"I think it would serve you very little," Sebastian clarifies, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. "But, I think that not knowing will weigh more heavily on your mind. The only way forward may be for you to give him your apology and ask his forgiveness. And if he will not give it, then you will have done all you can, and the rest of your life will be yours to do with as you wish."

Still, it did not answer the question. "And Tully? I will not break my word to the Maker if it puts Tully at risk."

"You can keep your word," Sebastian assures him. "If you meet him here in Kirkwall, it cannot be said that you went _after_ him, can it?"

Fenris can't help but chuckle, and perhaps it is from relief but it is also because what Sebastian has said seems preposterous. "Rules-lawyering, with the Maker? Surely that is dangerous."

"I am a priest in the service of the Maker's Bride," Sebastian said dryly, reaching for the pot. "Who better to advocate on your behalf?"

"A sister, perhaps," Fenris says, and Sebastian laughs and agrees, and all is well between them.

* * *

It isn't easy, however, to meet with a Knight of the Order -- a Lieutenant, now, Sebastian tells him, and Fenris feels a hot sort of pride in Carver for distinguishing himself. He imagines Carver is proud of himself also, imagines his joy and how joyfully he would have told Fenris of his promotion had they still been together for it.

Knights of the Order confine themselves largely to the Gallows and the Chantry. At first Fenris thinks he might find Carver in the Chantry, but Sebastian has it from one of the other Templars that Carver never takes Chantry duty if he can help it.

Fenris cannot go to the Gallows. The Knight Captain's ban is still in effect. And Sebastian flatly refuses to request Carver's attendance at the Chantry on pretext -- "It would be implicating the Chantry in a lie, Fenris. I can't do that."

So much for his support.

But then, one day out of nowhere, Sebastian tells him, "Carver has asked to see _me_. I have invited him to meet me in the Chantry. And I will not lie to him, but I will ... delay myself, so that he waits and you may have your opportunity."

It seems too convenient, but Fenris grabs the chance with both hands. "Yes. That is well. I will come."

Lying in wait for Carver, however, does not feel right. Fenris has too much time to think it over, and think that this, perhaps, is an inauspicious start. To trick Carver. No, it cannot be good to begin this way.

But then there is the scrape of an armoured boot in the hall and there he is, on the threshold, and Fenris cannot stop this now.

He comes into the study, but does not see Fenris at first. Fenris chose a corner to stand in, shadowed by a bookcase, and he observes now as Carver props his fists on his hips, eyeing the chairs and dismissing them one by one. Perhaps he thinks them too frail for his armour, for he is armoured, a huge bulwark of a man in his plate, skirts draped to the floor. He wears his plate easily now, naturally, no longer stiff and resistant to it. It flows with him, part of him, a second skin, and Fenris remembers a young man who hated armour, and remembers too the glistening of his bare shoulders in the sun.

Carver settles his feet, tucking his hands behind his back, and Fenris cannot stay hidden any longer.

He steps out of the shadows. "Hawke," he says and Carver's head snaps around. For a moment everything is naked in his face. Shock, certainly, but also disbelief and wonder.

" _Fenris_." But his expression twists, writhing into something ugly. "What are you doing here?"

Fenris will not lie to him now. "I came to see you."

Carver's mouth, the same mouth Fenris has kissed until it was red as a cherry, turns down hard. "Well, I came to see Sebastian. I don't have time for whatever you want."

Inauspicious, very much so, but Fenris must. This is his chance. "Then I will be brief. I must apologise. I have wronged you."

If anything this makes Carver's expression tighten. "Did Sebastian put you up to this?"

"No. He believes it a fool's errand. He thinks you will not listen."

Carver lets out a bark of laughter, bitter and sharp. "And here I thought we'd never agree on anything."

This isn't right. This isn't how he imagined it to be, Carver prickly and stubborn and ... and exactly the Carver that he always was, to everyone but Fenris. Because he cared for Fenris, and he doesn't anymore. The opportunity is slipping through Fenris' fingers; if he loses it now he'll never have another.

And perhaps that is only just, considering what he did to Carver.

But. "Carver," Fenris ploughs on, determined to try this last time, and the words he has memorised and repeated so many times come easily to him now. "I know you are not one to be wooed with soft words and softer sentiment--"

"Wooed?" All the bitterness is swept away by his shock. He stares, and Fenris almost flinches from the directness of his gaze. "You're wooing me now?"

Oh, his face. "Would you let me if I tried?"

There, he looks so ... that is _Fenris'_ Carver, the same one who would look at him like this and beg him with his eyes for a kiss or a kind word or yes, again, but harder. _His_ Carver, the one he has missed so sorely, who still haunts his dreams and leaves him echoingly empty on waking.

"Fenris," Carver says, and his voice breaks on it, but then it comes again, the ugly ripple of disbelief across his face, and his mouth thins. "You can't do this to me again."

"I swear to you, I would never again--" Fenris begins but Carver rocks on his heels as if in a swoon, eyes squeezed shut, catching the back of a chair with one hand to steady himself. There's a sharp tug against Fenris' brands, and it must be Templar magic, or anti-magic, at least that is what Fenris thinks. But -- Carver tosses his head as if shaking off a fly -- when he opens his eyes they are no longer the blue of a summer sky, but tinged with pale terrible purple.

Fenris feels his tongue dry to ash. His bones are ash, all of him. He cannot move, and this is not terror, he has _felt_ terror before. This is something else.

"You hurt me," Carver says, and the way he says it is wrong, as if he tries to convince himself. "You lied to me and threatened me and threw me out." One hand flattens to his belly, metal scraping on metal, and he hunches over it as though clutching a wound. "I won't let you hurt me again. You _won't_ hurt me like that again."

In the space between one heartbeat and the next Fenris believes Carver will lunge for him, and he does not know what he will do. Permit him, perhaps. Or destroy him out of instinct. But the moment passes and Carver blinks and the purple, when he looks up again, is gone.

"I ... think we're done here," Carver says, but he looks bewildered, and Fenris recognises it because he has seen it so many times in another face. And before that, in yet another.

Fenris can barely breathe. He knows the _truth_ but ... he cannot simply act on it. He is alone. It's Carver. He can't just--

Carver turns his back, stands facing the hearth that now lies cold. Fenris could punch a hand through his plate and tear out his heart before he even knew it. And to think it sickens him. _I did that once,_ he thinks, _I held his heart in my hand once, and he trusted me._

He knows, with a sudden painful clarity, what is necessary. There's no other choice. "I'm sorry," he says, knowing Carver will never forgive him for what he means to do.

And he walks out, through the Chantry and down the stairs, across the courtyards of Hightown. He doesn't look back, doesn't stop or slow or run, but walks briskly to the door he wants and pounds on it until it opens.

"Messere! Can I help you?"

"Merrill," Fenris says firmly, feeling his certainty harden in his gut. This is the only way. "I want to see Merrill."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't intend for Cullen to read as ace or sex-repulsed here. If my treatment of him comes across that way, and/or if it's offensive to people who are, please let me know. I'm tanukiham on gmail if you want to talk about it.


	37. Chapter 37

Sebastian knew about it all along, Carver decides, watching his eyes flicker about the room as if looking for someone who isn't there. Then he smiles, nodding in greeting. "Hawke. Can I offer you some tea?"

"Please." Carver keeps his temper barely, and only then because he's here at Cullen's suggestion. He waits while Sebastian importunes a novice to bring them a tray, fuming silently all the while. Sebastian _knew_. He set Carver up to be ambushed and now he's _smiling_.

"Now, how can I be of assistance?" Sebastian asks, sitting in an armchair and gesturing for Carver to join him. 

Carver ignores the invitation. "Fenris was here," he says flatly. Sebastian doesn't so much as flinch, simply raises his eyebrows in query. "You knew he was. He said you thought I wouldn't listen."

"And did you?" 

Carver feels his face tighten. "What's the point? He burned that bridge a long time ago."

"And if he'd apologised to you back then? There was a year there where I thought you might have welcomed an apology from him." 

It's _none of Sebastian's business_ , and yet ... "He didn't give one, so it doesn't matter. And what's changed, anyway? Why should he care now what I think?"

"He loves you," Sebastian says, too easily.

Carver feels sick. "I thought you weren't allowed to tell me those kind of things."

"He has never confessed this," Sebastian clarifies, and then he stops because a pretty girl in novice robes has come in with a pot and cups on a tray. Carver thinks maybe they're done talking about it but as soon as she's finished blushing and stammering at the handsome priest, Sebastian picks it up as if they'd never been interrupted. "It is obvious how he feels. Did you not receive his letter?"

"No? When?"

"You were in Starkhaven. He asked me if you'd read it. I suspected it was lost."

A letter, from Fenris, in _Starkhaven_. Would it have made any difference? "And I suppose you think I should forgive him, then?"

"I think if you do it will help to heal you both." Sebastian sounds so bloody _calm_ and Carver can't bear it.

"All _right_. I don't _care_. Tell him I forgive him. I still don't want anything to do with him, and this isn't why I came."

Sebastian pours him a cup of tea and offers it up. "Why did you, then?"

Carver takes the cup. The scent of it reminds him powerfully of Starkhaven -- all at once he's sitting in Tristram's office listening to him bitch about Knight Captain Bridie's painful incompetence. He blinks and the vision fades, but it leaves him restless, strangely homesick. "I wanted to talk to you about the document you signed. For your cousin, in Starkhaven."

If he hadn't been watching him he'd never have noticed the way Sebastian's expression freezes up. "Aye?"

"Aye," Carver mimics. "The one where you renounced your claim."

He looks for a moment like he's going to pretend he doesn't know what Carver's talking about, but then his mouth curls just a little. "What of it?"

Carver takes a breath. "Did you sign it 'Brother Sebastian' or 'Sebastian of Starkhaven'?"

Sebastian gives him a wry look, settling back in his chair. "I signed it with my signature, of course. But you're correct, I opened with 'Brother Sebastian', and not 'Sebastian of Starkhaven'. I wondered if you'd notice."

"Why?" Carver makes a broad gesture, not sure of any of this but, well, this is why he's here. "What difference does that make?"

"That would depend." He sounds so calm, as if this is nothing, and maybe it is but Carver suspects not. "There is ... a certain delicacy in legal matters. What Fenris would call 'rules lawyering'." Carver scowls at the mention of Fenris but Sebastian goes on all the same. "It could be argued that 'Brother Sebastian' ceases to exist, should I renounce my vows."

Carver takes a few moments to comprehend that. Then-- "Do you mean to? Renounce your vows, that is."

"I have no intention." Sebastian smiles but there's such _cunning_ in it that Carver can't leave it at that.

"But if you did?" he insists, and Sebastian shakes his head.

"If I did I would not be the man I believe myself to be. But. _That_ man would not be bound to the oaths made by the man I was no longer."

"And you did that on purpose," Carver says, not at all sure he gets it but sure it's important.

"I did." Sebastian tops up his tea and then offers the pot for Carver; he holds out his cup, steady as Sebastian refills it but impatient for an explanation. "Habit, I suppose. I may not be inclined toward the kind of political maneuvering my mother managed in her sleep but I had it drilled into me all the same. Why give up an advantage too easily?"

Carver examines him, trying to see the prince of Starkhaven that exists beneath Sebastian's robes and piety. They are, he thinks, alike in some ways. Sebastian's mother taught him things he doesn't need in this life, same as Carver's mother did (Maker watch over them both), and though Carver has never been invited to a fancy society dinner that his mother wasn't hosting herself he still knows how to hold his fork, how to cut his meat, how to drink his wine without slopping it down the front of his tunic. And, worse, Sebastian _was_ a prince for a good while, whereas Carver has never really had to be the noble son of a noble house.

For once he thinks how it must chafe, for Sebastian to wear all that beneath his robes and be unable to exercise it. Like Carver, when he wasn't allowed to be _good_ at the things he's always been good at, when his first priority had been keeping small and insignificant to protect his family. For all the good it had done, in the end.

"And you think you might need that advantage one day?"

"I think I would rather have it and not use it than need it and have given it away." Sebastian cocks his head, regarding Carver with the same kind of scrutiny Carver had given him just now. "I'm surprised, I must admit, that you would ask this of me. This is a question I would have expected from your brother."

"And he hasn't asked?" That's interesting, if so, but Sebastian shrugs, wrinkling his nose.

"He does not ask. He insists, rather, that I have squandered my opportunities. I would have thought he had political aspirations of his own, but it seems not. I believe his interests are more esoteric."

"You mean magic, right?"

Sebastian nods. "A different kind of power. I think the mantle of Champion weighs on him too heavily for him to contemplate the added weight of the Viscount's circlet. Perhaps I have assumed things of one Hawke when I should have considered the claims of the other."

For a long moment Carver doesn't get what he's hinting at, but then-- "Don't you start," he groans. "I'm not _interested_. There's nothing to claim."

"Indeed." Sebastian regards him very evenly, and Carver can't read his face when he's like this. "My understanding of the laws of Kirkwall is limited but I do know that mages are disallowed from inheritance. Your brother cannot legally claim your late mother's title. That is _yours_ , should you want it. The estate too. And the crest."

It's infuriating, and Carver resents Sebastian's cavalier invocation of his mother. "I don't want that. Tell anyone who asks. I _don't_. Let Garrett keep it all."

"If I might suggest you not commit to that on paper?" He offers the pot again, but Carver shakes his head. "Then, is this all you wished of me? We are overdue for a confession, if you wanted for one. If that would help you."

Carver wonders if he has anything to confess. No. No, not Cullen. That's not a sin, after all. "I'm good," he says, and then, "thanks for seeing me."

"I hope it aids you in whatever you're planning," Sebastian says, and Carver can't deny that something is being planned, and also--

"Do you like Meredith as Knight Commander?" he asks, and maybe it's too blunt, but Sebastian blinks, and frowns, and turns his head away as he drains his cup.

"If you have a better option, I would be interested in discussing it."

And if that isn't support then Carver has no idea what it would sound like.

* * *

Cullen seems pleased by his report, in any case. It isn’t in any way an official report, given as it is in shirt and trou with his boots off, Cullen sitting on the rug between Carver’s knees while Carver massages his shoulders. He hadn’t intended to give it this way, only Cullen had been rubbing his neck when Carver came in, and the offer seemed obvious, so it wasn’t until Cullen had tilted his head back against Carver’s thigh and asked, "How went it with Sebastian Vael?" that Carver remembered he had anything to report. 

So Carver gave it and now here they are, Cullen humming in a satisfied sort of way as Carver presses his thumbs into the muscles that bracket Cullen’s neck.

"He needs pursuing," Cullen says, in a way that Carver might have mistaken for absent if he didn’t know Cullen so well. No, this is thoughtful. He’s planning something. Carver squeezes him hard, slowly releasing the tight muscle between his fingers and palm. Cullen groans, but it’s appreciative. "Will you speak with him again?"

"If you want me to," Carver tells him. He'll do anything Cullen asks, only... "Don't know what to say, though."

"Let me think on it." He pauses, head tipping forward to let Carver at the base of his skull. "Have you considered his proposal?"

"Proposal?"

"Regarding the Amell title."

Carver freezes, horrified. _No._ Cullen must sense it because he shifts under Carver's hands, twisting around to look up at him. 

"Hawke?"

"I don't want it," Carver tells him, willing him to understand. "I never wanted any of it, and I don't ... just because my mother was ... but I'm _not_." _Don't you get it? I'm nothing like that._

"It is noble of you to reject it," Cullen says slowly, and he reaches up to cup Carver's jaw. "Many would not."

Carver shakes his head, but leans his cheek into Cullen's palm. "It's not noble, it's just... I couldn't. Garrett, maybe, but not me."

"Do you believe yourself incapable?"

"Yeah. I'd be rotten at that. Anyway, I'm a Templar. Surely it's not allowed."

"Your commision does not disqualify you, exactly. This is Kirkwall, after all." He rubs his thumb along the bone of Carver's cheek, eyes gone soft in the lamplight. "I think the city might be ready for a Templar with a title. And you would," he adds, gentle, gentle, "be meet for it. I believe you could do anything, should you attempt it. Should you think it necessary."

Carver can't. He can't, why would Cullen ask this of him? "Is it, then? Ser, must I?"

Cullen stares at him for a long time, but eventually he breathes out, dropping his hand to Carver's shoulder and squeezing there. "Of course you must do nothing if you are unwilling. I would never expect it of you."

But beneath that is the fact that Cullen thinks he can, and Carver cannot help but hear that as a wish for him to do so. And he _will_ do anything Cullen asks. "Command me, and I will," he says, wretched in himself but honest in this. "Ser. Whatever you need." _Whatever you want._

Again, Cullen fixes him with this _look_ that goes through him. He feels peeled apart by it, open and raw before his Captain. But Cullen shakes his head. "There is no need for it now. Come, let us forget it." He smiles then, tentatively welcoming, as if he expects Carver to deny him. "Will you come to bed with me? I do not mean ... that is to say I would be glad of your warmth, though I ask nothing more of you, tonight."

And Carver is grateful for the offer, wants nothing more than warmth tonight, from him. "As you say, ser." But that's not right. He takes a breath, rubbing a hand up into the short hair at the nape of Cullen's neck. "I'd be glad of you, just to ... Maker, will you cuddle with me?" His face goes hot at the asking, but Cullen pushes himself to his feet, his face wreathed with smiles.

"Nothing could give me greater pleasure."

So they do, curling up into a nest on the covers, and after that there is nothing hard or fraught between them, only the comfort of each other's arms. It is excellent, and if they can only have this, then Carver could be satisfied.

* * *

When Carver dreams he dreams of Ferelden. There's a cottage on a hill with a byre below and a patch of fat grey-skinned pumpkins, thyme and lemon verbena and mint rambling along the pickets. It's none and all of the places he loved best in Ferelden: that wall of yellow passion fruit; this moss-covered well; a little bridge over a stone-bottomed creek that only filled when it rained, the one Father made for Bethany.

There's soil turned over by the back gate, where Duchess used to bury her bones, and Carver misses her so fiercely it makes him sick. How the digging annoyed his mother. How passionately Garrett would defend his hound, and sneak her treats when she'd been banished in disgrace to the woodshed.

"I suppose you want me to be your brother's dog, now," the demon says. He's standing in amongst the pumpkins, tall and foreign in this so-familiar place. He seems vaguely irritated, flicking his black-tipped claws dismissively. "Shall I let you scratch my belly?"

"Don't be cruel." Carver runs his hand over the handle of the axe left wedged in its block. Father would have been cross about that, a good blade left to sour in all weather. "She was a good dog. She liked apple cores."

"Is this really all you want?" The demon is stripping the heads from the lavender spikes now, crushing them to powder in his palms, and the scent of it blooms thin and indistinct on the not-air here. "Pumpkins, and pies cooling on a windowsill?"

There _is_ a pie cooling on the windowsill. Apple and raisin he thinks, though the smell is too pale for one of his mother's pies; still it has a circle of five cuts in the crust, one for each of them. He knows if he opens up the cool-room there'll be a jug of cream on the shelf, sun-tea in a jar. Maker, this _place_.

"You can have more than this. Cullen won't be satisfied until he wears the gorget of the Knight Vigilant."

That sounds wrong. "What? No."

"Yes," the demon insists. "If only to protect you. From that height, he can keep you safe."

"That's a ridiculous reason."

"As though you don't suspect already," the demon scoffs, flinging lavender fragments into the air where they unfurl into pale moths that wing away into the twilight. "His rebellion comes all the sooner for _you_. You knew that when you tumbled him. You give him a reason to strike, when he has been patient enough to wait so long."

"It has nothing to do with me."

"Yet, you said it yourself when pleading your way into his bed. You _told_ him your safety depended on supplanting Meredith. And now he makes moves to do so." His eyes glitter with silent laughter. "Very clever."

"You think I manipulated him?" Carver shakes his head. It's nonsense. "I couldn't. He'd never let me."

"But he has. Though you did not intend it. _I_ did."

Carver frowns. "What?"

"He'll take you to the White Spire with him. Or gain you a throne. You'll be lauded, feasted. Admired. A better fate than this," and the dismissive sweep of his claws takes in the cottage, the garden, the cows below chewing their cud. "You can't have this, anyway. This isn't possible."

"I could have," Carver argues, forgetting immediately whatever it was the demon just said that struck his brain like a bell. "With Fenris, I--"

" _No._ " The demon is upon him now, looming over him like a giant, horns casting great black shadows. "You can't. Fenris is poison to us."

"You like pretending to be him," Carver argues, and he should be angry, shouldn't he? He can't summon the effort.

The demon lifts his chin, looking oddly huffy. "That was a lure. But he's too dangerous. Cullen will keep us safe, so long as he doesn't know about me. He'll protect us better than _Fenris_."

Carver doesn't understand. The words make sense, all of them, but together they melt into a fog. He shakes his head. "He wanted to say he was sorry. I should ... have listened to him." And forgiven him, truly. Mercy, the sight of Fenris after all this time was like a slap in the face, but one that should have hurt more than it did. 

The demon sighs. "No, I said. No Fenris. No more of that." His claws card carefully through Carver's hair, almost gentle. Carver leans his head on the demon's shoulder and closes his eyes, even as those claws settle on his shoulders and dig in. "You mustn't let him hurt us again."

"All right," Carver says, and the claws hardly even hurt anymore. "I won't."

* * *

Cullen is still planning the script for Carver's next interview with Sebastian. They agree it must wait until the right time with the right words, so the following day (after sparring with Ser Maglene) Carver sits in his office dealing with walk-ins that are dull and pointless, except when they're very pointed and he has to order something, which he hates doing but it has to be done.

It draws out very dull. Alistair is sent in to him in the afternoon and Carver just looks at him for a bit while Alistair gripes about his boots and the shittiness of recruit armour and the complete lack of mabari in Kirkwall. (Carver agrees with him about all of it but he mustn't say, except about the mabari, which is a Maker-cursed _crime_.) Eventually, though, he winds down and looks up, and he's so fucking _competent_ that it makes Carver sick.

"When are we going to knight you, mate?" he asks, breathing it out and not really expecting an answer.

Alistair makes a face. "Never, if I get my way. Though, history suggests that I won't. I never _do_."

"I wish you were my knight," Carver sighs, leaning back in his chair. "If I had ten of you. Five. Just _you_ , Maker's sake." Because Alistair is so _good_ , a seasoned warrior, brave and _earnest_ , and if Cullen had never smiled back at him Carver thinks he might have fallen in love with Alistair, with his bad puns and his cheerfulness about the awful lot he's been dealt in life. He looks like Carver's king, and he looks like himself, and he looks so ... so very _real_ , in a way that so many of his fellows just _don't_. 

But Alistair frowns, and Carver knows this won't ever work out the way he'd like.

"I don't want that," Alistair says, and for once he looks sorry about it. "If I did ... you'd be a good lieutenant, ser. Please don't think it personal."

It is, and it isn't. "But you don't want to be a Templar," Carver prompts, and Alistair shakes his head.

"I hate the idea. I'm not convinced the Chantry has the right of it, with mages. How could I serve the Order if I felt like _that_?"

It's a good question, one for which Carver has no good answer. But he knows his own mind, so he says, "I don't know that they do either. Mages were never monsters, for me. I can't treat them like they are. Not when my sister," and he breaks off, struck by this deep feeling that he has forgotten her. Bethany, not always right and frequently impossible, but his _sister_ , his _twin_ , the most dearly beloved friend he has ever had, and how could he forget her face? It's a blur to him now. He wishes, suddenly, that he looked more like her or she more like him, that he might see her again in his looking glass of a morning, see her frown over his eyes, see her smile in his mouth. 

He blinks hard, the choke in his throat inappropriate for this so he swallows it down, and makes himself meet Alistair's eye. 

"You'd be a good one, if you took the vows. Better than most."

Alistair accepts this, though his expression is doubtful. "Thank-you, I suppose. It doesn't change anything."

"It doesn't," Carver agrees. And then-- "So, what? You're just serving out your term and then ... off on the wind?"

"That's about the shape of it." He grimaces. "If your Captain will let me go."

He says it so quietly that Carver misses the importance of it at first. But then he frowns. "You think Cullen won't?"

"He's made it very clear that he wants me to stay." Alistair shrugs, but his studied nonchalance is unconvincing. "I don't know how much choice he'll give me, in the end."

"He won't force you to take your vows," Carver argues, and when Alistair opens his mouth Carver cuts him off. "He _won't_. And I won't let him. I promise you that."

Alistair smiles. Such a good smile, and _fuck_ , maybe Carver _is_ a little in love with him, because that smile hits him in a place he'd thought scabbed over the day his King strode into battle and was torn so brutally to pieces. _Maybe I'd follow him, if he asked._

Good, then, that Alistair won't ever ask. 

Carver changes the subject, asking Alistair about Ser Maglene and her obvious crush. Alistair goes gloriously beetroot, stammering about camaraderie and 'mateship', tangling his words until Carver can't help laughing at him. Alistair scowls and mutters something about women being the death of him, and Carver clutches his own face, unable to keep the wrack of his giggles inside. 

He's still grinning when Hugh bangs on the door and opens it without asking because he thinks he's special.

"Dwarf with a message for you, ser," he says crisply. Minus, Carver notes, his usual jibes and faces about people who aren't human. Maybe he's getting better. Maybe Carver's naive.

"Spill it, then," Carver tells him, not bothering to spare Alistair a glance. If it's sensitive Hugh will say, and if not then it doesn't matter.

Hugh doesn't say, just shrugs his shoulders. "You're wanted up at the Amell estate. He said it was urgent."

Bodahn, then, for Garrett. Carver sighs and shoves himself to his feet. "Best get it over with. Tell him I'm on my way. And you," he adds, jerking his head at Alistair, "Let Cullen know I'm headed upstairs and I don't know how long I'll be. Dismissed, both of you."

He considers washing up and decides that it's only Garrett. He sheds his armour but shoulders his sword, though, the one his brother gave him the night he'd really wanted it, and wishes for a moment he still had his beard if only to see the look on his brother's face. But. _Cullen wants, Cullen gets,_ and it buoys him up when the thought of seeing Garrett again after so long leaves him on edge.

Bodahn hasn't waited for him so he goes up alone. He should have visited before now, he thinks as he treks up the endless stairs to Hightown, and Garrett's probably going to squawk at him about it. Carver feels his face scrunch up into a scowl just thinking about it. Well, he doesn't have to take that from Garrett, not anymore. He's a Lieutenant of the Order, not a baby. Garrett isn't the boss of him. _Cullen_ is, and Cullen doesn't _squawk_ at him. Instead he makes that 'disappointed' face, which is actually far worse. Carver tries to imagine Cullen disapproving at him now, remembers instead how sleepy he is when he wakes, the sweetness of his kisses, and he grins because this is probably exactly what Cullen meant about fraternisation being bad for discipline.

 _I'll show him,_ he promises himself, knocking on the door. _I'll be the best knight he ever had, all the same. He won't regret any of it._

The door cracks open, just a fraction of a face squinting up at him, and then it's flung wide, as wide as Sandal's grin. "Enchantment!"

With the wash of his thoughts all over Cullen, and that happy face beaming up at him, Carver can't help smiling back. "Good to see you too, Sandal. Can I come in?"

Sandal laughs and reaches for his hand, tugging him inside. He's surprisingly strong, and Carver goes with the pull, though he wonders how often they let Sandal open the door and whether or not it upsets Garrett's Hightown friends. If he _has_ Hightown friends. _Fuck 'em,_ Carver thinks. Sandal's all right. A bit simple, sure, but good-natured and cheerful, and if anyone takes offense to him they can shove it up their arse.

"Is my brother about?" Carver asks, patting his pockets. Usually he has sweets on him for the apprentices, and sure enough there's a couple of paper-wrapped toffees in a pouch. Sandal takes them from him gleefully, and shakes his head.

"Enchantment," he says, with all seriousness, which Carver supposes is a no. Typical. Carver's going to have to wait. Urgent, Garrett said. Doesn't look very bloody urgent, after all.

But then-- "Carver!" Merrill leans over the balcony, and Carver thinks, _Oh!_ because if he should have visited Garrett before now then he _definitely_ should have visited Merrill. 

He opens his mouth to shout a greeting up at her but she just holds out a hand, beckoning him up.

"Tha-ank-you, Sandal," she trills, and _Maker_ , he's missed her, he'd forgotten how much. Just the sound of her voice is a welcome comfort, and he cuts Sandal a halfway-to-polite bow before taking the stairs two at a time to meet her.

"Hullo," he says, thinking about hugging her but thinking again about it. No. Maybe ... but no, he shouldn't press. "You look ... very nice."

She does, but she also looks tired and tense, shadows beneath her eyes that he doesn't remember. She's out of armour, dressed simply in a low-belted green tunic over trousers, and she looks soft, very pretty, almost innocent, and when she smiles he feels the familiar pang that had used to be about his horrendous crush on her and has now morphed into something else entirely.

"Oh, that's nice of you to say," she sighs, stepping back across the landing to the door to what he remembers is her room. "Please come in. I don't have -- oh. I could ask Sandal to bring you some wine, if you like?"

He shakes his head, looking around the room. "I'm fine." Her room is still so nice, the window wide and open to the breeze, a plush green rug underfoot that looks moss-soft and clean. It smells familiar in here, something spicy and elven with hints of something else cutting in sharp overtop. There's a teacup on the wide windowsill, a leaf trapped underneath, and beside it a book with another leaf sandwiched between the pages as though keeping its place. The shelves are full of more books, a cluster of glass bottles with dried flowers propped up in the necks, and some fat clay pots stoppered with cork and tied about in silky cord. There's seven pots, all told, all unornamented roughwork, and Carver lifts a hand to take one up but Merrill jerks forward to catch his wrist before he can make contact.

"Please don't," she says, sharper than the Merrill he remembers, and he nods, muttering an apology. "It's all right. Just ... don't touch those. Please?"

"Fine. It's fine," he tells her, and then he feels awkward about it all, tugging his wrist out of her grasp and trying to think of something to say, with the whiff of something _so_ familiar tickling his nose. "You're all right, then? I haven't ... I should have come see you sooner."

"Oh, no. I didn't think ..." and she frowns, shaking her head and clutching her hands together at her waist. "I worried you wouldn't come when I asked."

"Of course I'd come. For you." He makes his face smile, because he has _missed_ her, all the sweet green freshness of her, despite everything. "Aren't we friends?"

"Sometimes I'm not sure you think so." 

Her lip is caught in her teeth and he ... well, he doesn't want to kiss her, not the way he'd used to do, but now? He does want her to feel comfortable with him. Even though-- "I'm not here to take you to the Gallows, Merrill. I'd never do that."

She blinks, and looks up, her eyes wide with the same curiosity he remembers of her. "Wouldn't you? Isn't that your job?"

"I wouldn't," he promises, and even if she ... But he knows she's a blood mage already. What would it take for him to? And she's right, it _is_ his job, it's his _duty_. "I don't know what I'd do if you went wrong. But ... you'd have to go pretty fucking wrong for that, anyway."

Her slow solemn nod isn't for him, he thinks. "If I did go wrong, I don't ... Carver, I don't know if I'd hurt you then. But I _swear_ ," she adds, her expression hardening into something he hasn't seen before, "I would rather _die_ than hurt you. I hope you believe me when I say I only want what's best for you."

Ah. That's okay. "I do. Believe you, I mean. Maker," and he rolls his shoulders, itchy down his spine with the scent of ... what is that? It smells like ... "It's good just to see you. How's my brother? I thought he'd be here, since he sent for me so 'urgently'."

"What? Oh, no. That was _me_. I wanted to see you." She smiles, but there's something wrong about it, too tentative, even for her. "And you came."

"Yeah." That scent. He knows it. Maker fuck he knows it, and suddenly he knows it for what it is. His head tips around, and there, that teacup, it's not empty, instead half full of _blue_ and ... fuck, no. "Merrill," he says, and he doesn't mean to sound censorial but he can't help it. "That's lyrium."

Her eyes betray her, flickering to the windowsill and back again, and he doesn't need her to answer.

"Merrill," he sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair and wishing _so hard_. "You shouldn't drink that stuff. Did Garrett ...?" Because. Of _course_ Garrett would think this was okay, might have given it to her, might have let her get _addicted_ to the stuff. Fucking mages, thinking they knew best, thinking they could control it, when everyone knew how bad it was.

But Merrill flutters, her hands coming up like pale moths to touch his chest. "It's not what you think, I swear. Oh, Carver ... I'm so sorry."

"For the lyrium?" Because, if she needs help then he can help her, he thinks. Of anyone maybe he can _help_ her, and--

"No," she says, quiet and ashamed, and he doesn't get it, but he reaches out to lay a palm on her shoulder.

"It's okay," he says, and he's going to add something helpful, though he doesn't know what just yet, but there's a footfall on the landing and then the door swings open and...

And. It's Fenris. 

He's armed and armoured and his expression is hard as granite as he shoves the door closed behind him, blocking the exit with his body. He looks from Carver to _Merrill_ and back again, and if anything his face goes harder, a mask of fierce determination that Carver has seen before, though never directed at _him_.

Except. Once.

_No._

Carver steps off, hand jerking back from Merrill's shoulder, ready to go up for his sword (as if he could even do anything with it in here, tight as they are, and as if he _would_ , anyway) but Merrill catches his wrist and pulls it in front of her. He twists his head to stare at her but the fingers of her other hand are on the back of his neck and--

"Merrill?"

but--

"I'm _sorry_ ," she says, and he has time to think, _What? No--_ but then the magic comes up, everything goes dark, and he's pulled under.


	38. Chapter 38

Carver hits the ground hard, the pink stuff of the Fade catching him firm but it feels wrong, alien and weird and then there's a hand hooking into his, pulling him to his feet.

"What--" 

but the demon yanks him onward, taloned fingers caught fast in his own. "No time," it says, and he doesn't ... he _does_ know. Fuck, he knows, and the sour horror of it comes up in his throat. _This is Longing, this is my demon,_ my _demon, my_ friend _, Maker save me._

The demon jerks him hard, and it _hurts_ , but then the demon stops, twisting about as though expecting pursuit. They're alone here, in a pink-and-purple-tinged landscape full of pink-and-purple twists that are and are not trees, and it looks like nothing Carver has ever dreamed before.

"She's coming. _They're_ coming. We have to _go_."

Carver digs his heels in, though he knows -- _We've been friends for so long, I trust him_ \-- but still. "Go where? Who are 'they'?"

The demon shudders, coming over all in bursts of purple, and Carver knows he's desperate, though he does not know how he could know it. "Enemies. They want to hurt us. We have to _go_. We have to _hide_." And he turns, catching Carver's shoulders in both hands, his eyes such a bright terrible lavender that it hurts Carver to look right at him. "Somewhere no-one will look for us."

Carver tries to ... but this is _his_ demon, his _friend_ , and he cannot help himself. "Lothering," he says, but the demon shakes his head.

"She'll find us there. Somewhere secret."

Carver has nothing. "Riverton? No," because he knows (somehow) that she (whoever 'she' is) will find them there, will know though he's never told her of it. They need somewhere else, somewhere they can hide. "This way," he says, pulling hard, and the demon lets him, and then--

The hot stink of darkspawn explodes into the air and he knows, holy shit, he _knows_ where they are.

"Oh, _very_ good," the demon mutters, and he shrinks, no longer eight foot tall and crested with horns but small instead, shorter than Carver, looking up at him from under a shitty helmet out of of a face he remembers, like Pax but weaker, dirtier, dressed in the hodge-podge armor of the Fereldan army at its worst. "Come _on_!"

He runs into the melee and Carver follows, because... Because. He knows this field, knows this battle. Knows the weight of the darkspawn army as it flows across his country, knows what will happen if they can't hold at Ostagar. Somewhere in there his king is dying and Carver _needs_ to. This time. He won't let it happen again.

* * *

Carver has gone to a soft crumple on the floor between them; Fenris watches Merrill lay him out on the rug, sees her lay him down gentle and he wishes he could have been the one to--

No. _No_ , he has no right. He tries to catch the glint of Merrill's eye. "And now?"

Merrill does not look up at once. Instead she strokes Carver's hair and rises to her feet. "He's down. Are you ready?" The look she gives him is solid, stern, and reminds him hard of the mages of Tevinter, but he pushes that thought away, determined to do whatever is necessary no matter what it is.

"Yes," he says, but then, "Must you do blood magic for it?"

She stares at him a moment, and she looks ... not upset, only determined. "No. I have lyrium. But," and she reaches with one hand for a cup and the other for Fenris' own hand, "will you trust me?"

He would not, if he had his way. But he must. He curls his fingers in hers and he says, "Yes, for this," because he asked her for help, and now they are knee-deep in it. He squeezes her hand, pulling it up, and he says, "Is he tainted?"

"By a demon?" Merrill squeezes him back, and she looks so unhappy that he knows without hearing her answer. She lifts up her cup and drinks it down. The face she makes ... but then she nods, and says, "Yes. Let's go free him."

So Fenris lets her take him down.

It is dark at first, a deep darkness like a twilight too purple and terrible to deny, but he feels the press of Merrill's hand on his own and she drags him up through it until he breaches, and finds himself in the midst of a small town, surrounded by shadowed figures that mean nothing to him. He feels confused, looking about for Carver, but Merrill pulls on his hand, her touch the only real thing in this wilderness, and she says, "He's gone from here. Let's find him."

The world whirls around him and Fenris is dizzied by it until it stops again, and they look down on a plain mired in ... those are darkspawn, he knows it. Merrill hums and Fenris looks over the plain because ... Carver is down there, somewhere, and they must find him. He knows that. But. Merrill knows the Fade better than he ever could, and so he must defer to her, though it chafes.

She is still now, staring out over the plain, her gaze flickering from point to point, and Fenris feels his rage build up, feels it strengthen until it may break him, and he waits all the same because as much as he hates her (as he has always hated her for what she is) Merrill knows now what must be done and how to do it.

The air aches against him; he feels wounded by it, as though every breath he takes is a wound in itself, and he knows it will weaken him unto death if it is allowed to continue, so he says, "Merrill. _Merrill_. We must find him."

"In a moment," she breathes, but Fenris cannot wait.

He searches over the splay of darkspawn below, and sees also the hollow where they are forced back. "There," he says, and he points at it. " _There_. If we look for Hawke he will be at the center." He offers his hand again. "Take me to him."

She hesitates, but only for a moment. "You're right. In his dream ... but you're right," and the world shimmers around him long enough for it to be sickening, but after that--

The darkspawn are like smoke; he strides through them. He pushes himself forward, and he calls, "Hawke!"

Carver beats another shadow into the ground, and turns. He stares. "Fenris?"

But there is a figure by Carver's elbow, one that comes up all sun-gold armour, his hair cornsilk, his skin like peach, and his fine-gilt hand landing on Carver's shoulder. "They come for me, my knight. Don't let them take me again."

And Carver ... _oh_ ... Carver raises his sword. It is a huge two-hander, burnt down one side and still licking flame, the other side serrated and doused in blood, and Fenris feels something hit him square in the chest, emotion as sharp as a blow. This is _Carver_. Sure he will not--

Carver hefts his blade. "I'll take the emissary, sire, if you take the alpha." 

"As you say." The man in gold steps forward, between Carver and _them_ , and his eyes are gold-flecked lavender. "This one is _mine_ , and you will not have him."

Fenris _can't_ but he _must_ \--

"Stop it!" Merrill strides in, and the snakes of vine that precede her curl along the ground and into every fissure, "Ca-arver! Whoever you think that is, it's not him. That's a _demon_."

"We're in this together," says the golden man, the demon, and Carver nods, shifting his feet as though he means to charge.

 _No._ Fenris will not let this happen.

"Carver," he says, stepping into Carver's field, open and vulnerable. "Do not listen to it. You cannot let it fool you."

Carver simply stares, mouth gone slack with horror, and then he shakes himself. "Why is it talking to me? Darkspawn can't ... How does it know my _name_?"

"It's trying to trick you," the demon says, its voice throbbing with dissonance. "You must kill it. Do it now."

But Carver shudders, and the shadows of darkspawn flicker like candleflames. 

"No," he breathes, "No, this isn't..." He looks up, eyes too bright, fear writ large in his face. "My king's dead. It's not real."

The demon twists, shifts, remakes itself into the shape of another man, one so like Carver's brother that Fenris almost mistakes it. But there is too much of Carver in its face and almost before it speaks Fenris knows. 

"Don't let them trick you," the demon says, its hand settling on Carver's shoulder. "My son, do not let them."

For a moment-- but Carver, instead of yielding to it, goes stiff and furious. "Don't do that! Don't you dare!" He turns on the demon, his weapon down, gone loose in his hands, but his expression... "You're not my father! Why must you --"

"Do _not_ let them _trick_ you," the demon insists, grown large now, tall enough that Carver is caught in its shadow. "Don't be foolish, Carver. Do as I say."

" _No_ ," and Carver steps off, though he does not raise his sword. "Don't do this to me. Don't _lie_ to me, for fuck's sake!"

"Ca-arver," Merrill pleads, "come away from it. Come to _me_."

He casts her a wild look, and Fenris -- how fragile Carver is, how mortal and easily broken -- he cannot bear it. " _Carver_. None of this is real. You know us. We are your friends."

"Darkspawn," Carver spits. His expression tightens, and with it Fenris feels the Fade thicken around them, can see the clarity in Carver's face begin to slip away beneath the demon's onslaught. "I won't let you trick me."

"Good boy," says the demon, and its smile is a gloat that Fenris cannot stand to see.

What can he do? Surely there must be some way--

Perhaps there is a way.

"Spar with me, you said." Carver stiffens but does not look up, and Fenris plunges on, running headlong toward something that could break them both if it does not come right. "I did not know to care for you then. I thought you foolish and self-absorbed, but I humoured you because it amused me to defy your brother."

He sees Carver's shoulders hunch, can feel the weight in them as Carver bows his head, his eyes open but scanning the ground as if looking for an exit. But.

"It felt good to put your brother in his place, because I did not feel he deserved to be the centre of anyone's world, and certainly not my own. I used you, a tool to cause him discomfort, to remind him that he did not own me and that I owed him nothing."

Every word of it is true. Fenris hopes his honesty will not destroy him, but he hopes, also, that Carver will hear him out this once.

"I _used_ you. And then I came to know you. And I felt ... perhaps this man was not like his brother." This is dangerous, he knows, but he _means_ it, in ways Carver may not appreciate, and it must be said. "Perhaps this was a man I could trust, one with whom I could be safe. Perhaps I might share myself with him."

Now Carver does look up, and there is so much anguish in his face. "Stop it," he says, but it is weak, and Fenris cannot stop now that he has begun.

"So I did. And you were sweet, and--" Fenris breaks off, ashamed now but he must say it. It is only the truth, not even the worst of his truths. "I was frightened, so I hurt you. And when I regretted it you _forgave_ me. No-one else has ever done as much, for so little reward."

"I got _you_ ," Carver says, low down and whisper-quiet, and whether he still sees the illusion or the truth isn't clear but he is listening and that can only be good.

"Yes. And we were happy."

"I was. You weren't." Carver shakes his head, his mouth wrenched in misery. "You threw me out. You told me to _go_."

"I believed it was for your own good. And I regret it more than any thing I have ever done." This too is true, though perhaps he should regret other things more than this -- his betrayal of the Fog Warriors, his treatment of his sister, that he allowed Danarius to confuse him so badly that he _hurt_ Carver _again_ and _again_ \-- only he cannot. "I loved you too much to let you leave me. I could not allow you to wound me so. Or so I told myself. But," and this, too, is shameful, but he _must_ , "It was only that I was afraid, and I let my fear rule me when instead I should have become master of it."

"You said it was all a _lie_." The anguish in his voice ... oh, how it _aches_ , and Fenris cannot deny it because it, too, is true. "You said we were only marking time."

"I was a fool. I _am_ a fool." Such a fool to think he could control something as willful as mortal feeling. So wrong, too, how _wrong_ he was. "I cannot ask you to forgive me, but believe me when I say that I will do anything in my power to protect you from the demon that has wormed its way into your heart." Even if it kills him, he _cannot_ stand by and let this demon take the man who has loved him better than he could ever have imagined he might deserve. He holds out his hand, sharp-fingered as it is, and he _hopes_. "Carver. Let me save you now."

Carver opens his mouth, but then the demon chooses to pounce.

" _Carver_ ," it says, and it has shifted again, gold-haired and majestic in its Templar plate, its hands closing on Carver's shoulders to tug him once more into its orbit. "My _knight_. Do not listen to the importuning of _shadows_. Do you not love me?"

The moment stretches out, painful in its thinness, and Fenris sees Carver stare and _stare_ , and then nod, and the sight of it bores a hole in him, a wound that weakens him to his core. "I do. But not you. You're not my Captain." Carver lifts his sword then, hands secure on the hilt of it, his fingers firm. "You're not my father and you're not my _king_. You're nothing."

"Am I not your friend?" It sounds surprised, and Fenris sees Carver frown, brow drawn down in determination.

"My friends don't lie to me."

"Do they not?" The demon sweeps an arm in an arc, taking in Fenris and Merrill both. "Fenris lied to you, by his own admission. And you know Merrill has been inside you without your leave, more than once. How can you trust _them_? Ask yourself: what do they _want_?"

Into Carver's hesitation, Merrill says, "We only want what's best for you."

And the demon smiles, with the face of a man Fenris has resented for so long. "As do I."

But Carver pulls up his blade, stepping back into a stance Fenris taught him years ago. "No," he says, quiet, but then he says it again-- " _No,_ " with his gaze fixed on the demon in human form. "That's not what you want."

The demon hisses, reaching for Carver with fingers gone into long talons. "You _fool_ ," it says, and the talons sink in deep, and Carver cries out as though his heart is breaking. Fenris jerks into a run, to close the distance between them, but out of the corner of his eye he catches movement. Merrill, hands flung wide, her face pale with what he imagines can only be panic, but the resonance of her voice is steady and sure.

" _No,_ " she says, and the world _tips_ and--

* * *

It takes a heartbeat -- the rush of the demon, Fenris racing to meet it headlong, Carver's sharp cry and fall -- and Merrill _will not let this happen_. 

No.

She feels it when the claws go in, as the demon seeks to anchor itself and suck Carver dry, and she will not allow it, rises up to defy it, the net of magic coiled in her hands already flung. It covers the demon, covers Carver and Fenris (poor, poor Fenris) and holds them fast for the splinter of a splinter of a moment she needs to wrest the demon down into a shape she can challenge, and then--

Then.

The demon writhes out of the world, into a dark place where she must follow if she means to best it, a hollow darkness that _hurts_ her but she _cannot_ let it go. She latches on, her own fingers clawed now, ripping into the Fade-stuff that demons are made of, and she thinks: _I'll hold you, I will not let you go until you let_ him _go_.

The agony of it is terrible. But.

She holds on, clinging to it and tearing until the soul-scream of the demon screeches across whatever it is that makes her herself, threatening to rend her to bits.

Still she holds on, and the net she has woven is not enough, the usual slick slide into the demon untenable without Hawke's help. She can't do this without him, she _can't_ , what a small and useless thing she is alone. _No._ He isn't here, it is only her, and she has no other choice.

She _holds_ , digging in deep, searching through it for the anchor that links Carver ( _da'len, ma falon, lethallin_ ) to the demon that is sunk in him like a _hook_ , and she can feel the bits and pieces of Carver that it has devoured over the years, bright and lovely in the grey muck of which the demon is made. They taste so _sweet_ , tart and fresh, and she knows why the demon has taken them into itself. She knows. She will not allow it.

"Give him _up_ ," she insists, and the demon fights her but it is a losing battle. They wrestle, caught in a death-grip as Merrill rips the hook free, and the pieces of Carver too to bundle them together in a safe place inside herself, and still the demon writhes, like a nest of vipers, and it strikes her again and again and with each strike she feels herself wither. It hurts...

And then-- "Stop! Please, little witch, stop," and it sounds so wounded that her first instinct is to soothe it, but she cannot, she _must_ not, digs her fingers in deep instead. " _Please_ ," it begs again, going still under her hands, eyes violet-bright and pained here in this endless darkness. It offers its belly, makes a show of weakness beneath her, and for a moment she almost believes it.

But it is a demon, and not to be trusted.

Still, it begs. "I'll let him go. I'll never touch him again, I swear to you." There are tears streaking its face, but they are false, a play of mortality to woo her. She tightens her grip. "Ah! No! Let me go, and I'll give him back!"

Merrill hesitates. "All the pieces of him. Give them to me."

The demon groans. "Most of them."

" _All._ Now, or I swear I'll take you to bits and scatter you across the Fade!"

"I _can't_ , I love him, they're _mine_ ," and again it writhes, struggling no longer to best her but only to get away.

"You _don't_ love him, or you would never have taken so much from him." How _angry_ it makes her to hear the demon insist, but the demon _does_ insist, rallying to brace itself against her once more.

"They _hurt_ him. I took them because they _hurt_." It rears up in her hands, weak and wounded and horribly earnest. "Would you give them back only for them to hurt him again?"

For a moment she wavers. But. They are _pieces of Carver_ , and no-one has the right to take what was never freely given.

If she has learned anything from Hawke it is how to be cruel to a pinned enemy. She digs in, holds the demon still, and tears another handful of Carver-and-demon-stuff loose. The demon howls, but she will not hear it, will not care anymore because _this_ is why demons are feared, because they can _eat_ you and _keep_ you and _bargain_.

"I won't let you have him," she tells it, and she feels the moment where the demon gives up, feels the slump of it in her hands.

"As you demand. I thought _you_ , of all of them, might understand."

"I do," she says, and she means it, because _this_ , of all things, she truly does. "Give him up _now_."

And it does. The fragments flow into her and she catches them all, watching the demon pale and wither with hunger as it surrenders every little coloured shard. She tucks them away to give them up later, and tightens her grip because...

Well. There was only ever one way this was going to go.

She pulls the demon up, holding it fast between her hands. The look of startled betrayal on its face should be satisfying, but instead it fills her only with bitterness.

"You!" Its claws come up to score deep gouges in her chest. "But, you--"

"I promised you _nothing_." It is true, and the demon should have known better. "As though I could leave you here to feed on another. I _won't_ let you do this again."

Magic pours into her like wine. She tears; the demon howls, and then she is alone in this Fade-place, grey muck dripping from her fingers into dust.

It is done. She is _done_ here. This is the only way it could have gone.

And it aches like a wound, the terrible understanding that in all traffic with demons there are only two true endings.

She should have known this all along. _Marethari, I'm sorry._

She turns in the darkness toward the bright points that are her friends, and lets them guide her home.


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote something small at the end of the last chapter (Merrill's POV section), something I only realised I'd forgotten after I'd posted. Mea culpa.

He wakes wrecked, like he's been shattered on the rocks of a foreign shore, and he tries to push himself up from the ground but his limbs are too weak to obey him.

"Carver," says someone, and then there is a hand on his face, sharp fingerpoints near his eyes. He flinches from them though ... though he does not want them to go.

"Fenris?" Because he knows this voice, knows these gauntlets, and the tentative touch of these hands as they roam over him, seeking he has no idea what.

But-- "Carver. Venhedis, _Carver_. Will you open your eyes?"

He tries and the world swims into view. Green, such green beneath him, soft and welcoming, but Carver shoves himself up to get away from it, and immediately he regrets it as the sink-and-spin of the world works hard to pull him under. 

"Are you well?"

Again, that voice, and it is a rocky harbour, but if only he could be _safe_ here, _oh_ \--

"There's wrong in him. Merrill, _help me_."

"He's not finished. I have to put the pieces of him _back_."

Carver doesn't understand it so he ignores it, trying to work out the mess of his limbs and make them do as he wants. His body is against him, and it has never been such an enemy to him before. He fights it, tries to push himself up, tries to find his feet only ... only they are _nothing_ , and therefore _he_ is nothing.

_Not good for anything except swinging a sword around, and if I can't even do that--_

He _tries_ , and it comes to nothing.

"Ca-arver?" There are hands on him, turning him onto his back, and then the expanse of pale plaster above, framing two faces he knows looking down at him. Merrill. _Fenris_ , and Merrill says, "Look at me, Carver. I have something for you. Please ... don't be angry."

He opens his mouth though he doesn't know what he means to say, but there is magic brewing in the air and he can't even fight it, not now, not so weak as this, and then--

It pushes _into_ him, and the pain of it is enough to make him scream.

.

A farm

a demon

his friends

_Bethany_

Pax, Pax, oh poor Paxley

Starkhaven

his mother, oh

his abandoned knights

handsome Lachlan and his rare smiles

oh, Rosie, the loss of her and 

the bump at her waist, how could he not have noticed?

Fenris

Maker, _Cullen_

the demon

and a farm.

If only he could have that again.

.

His throat is raw, his nerves raw, his hands too, as though they have been scoured down to the bone, and he gasps for air because the knowledge of all of _this_ is too much to bear. 

_I failed you all. Andraste have mercy. Maker forgive me._

" _Carver!_ " The warm press of leather-clad palms on his face, those points still too close to his eyes, but he wants them so he wrenches his eyes shut and leans _in_ , still fighting for breath, still ruined.

_Fenris. Fenris, Fenris ... I'm sorry._

"What did you _do_ to him?"

Fenris sounds so angry. Carver tries to pet him, hand landing on the cold hard plate of his armour, but it takes such an effort, all his energy to do so.

"I gave him back the pieces of himself that the demon had eaten."

"What?"

"If I hadn't, he'd have been like Danarius. Fenris, I couldn't let that _happen_."

"What do you mean?"

Now Fenris sounds terribly afraid, so Carver tries to push himself up, fingers caught in Fenris' shoulder-strap. "Fenris," he says, blinking hard, but the light is too much and it hurts him. "It's okay." 

He's so pale, almost grey, and his hands flutter over Carver's chest, catching him up and taking his weight. "No, don't. It is _not_ okay."

"It's fine," Carver tells him, but it really, really isn't, and it's clear from the wrench of Fenris' expression how unconvincing this is.

"Then why do you weep?"

Carver realises that his face is wet, water dripping off his jaw to soak the collar of his shirt. He sniffs hard but the water keeps coming, and his throat is thick, his mouth sore, his eyes baked like eggs, and _no_ , he will not _weep_ like a _child_ when there is nothing wrong with him.

Only.

Only it _is_ wrong, all of it wrong, and when he looks at Fenris all he can think is, _I forgot how I missed you. Maker, Fenris, I'm sorry._

So he says it. "I'm _sorry_ , oh Fenris, I'm so fucking _sorry_ ," but Fenris hushes him, those sharp gauntlets ticking over his chest and his shoulders while Fenris looks so very hurt that Carver...

"Maker's mercy, I don't know how to--" and he shoves himself up, pushing Fenris away. Everything feels so _new_ , the pain of it all stabbing at him like a dozen sharp fingerpoints, digging into him and tearing at the stuff that makes him himself. "I have to go."

"Where?" Fenris looms again, eyes bright and clear like coloured glass, that same wonderful green that he has loved and told himself he hated. "I'll go with you, wherever you wish."

" _Home_ ," Carver tells him. He sees Fenris flinch.

"The Gallows?"

Of _course_ the Gallows. "Where else?"

Fenris nods, sitting back on his heels, his face hard as slate. "Home to your Knight Captain."

" _Yeah_ ," Carver breathes, but he -- he doesn't _know_ , anymore, and he feels the weight of emotion overtake him again and, oh, he doesn't know. Cullen. He _loves_ Cullen, he _knows_ it, but he remembers loving Fenris too and he wants so badly to fall into Fenris' arms and be _safe_ here. 

He can't. Fenris isn't, and _he_ isn't, and this is _real_ but now he remembers all the things that were not.

A farm and a demon and, 'You can't have this,' and he has been such a stupid rotten _fool_.

"Shhh." _There_ are Fenris' hands on his jaw again, the dangerous fang of his fingers, but Carver knows Fenris won't hurt him. Still, he makes himself pull away, too full of feeling to let anyone else in. "Hush," Fenris says. Carver lets Fenris stroke his hair, and he wants it, so much that he knows it isn't something he can have.

And. _Cullen_.

He doesn't want to ask, but he must. "Please. Will you take me home?"

Fenris nods, his face giving away nothing, and offers Carver his hand. "I will."

It's hard, his feet obstinate, all of him fighting something only that something is him _self_. Fenris is careful, patient with him, guiding him out onto the landing, to the head of the stairs, and that is when the front door opens and Garrett strides in, just the same old Garrett, with a staff in one hand and a bundle in the other, and a familiar unbearable smile on his face.

"Carver!" The smile vanishes. Garrett's face twists into surprise. "Are you ... what's going on?"

"Nothing," Carver says, and

"Nothing," Fenris says, and

"Everything's all right now," Merrill calls over the railing, but Garrett glances at each of them in turn and it's clear that he doesn't believe any of it. 

He drops his bundle to come up the steps, ignoring Fenris, his eyes fixed on Carver's face. "Have you been _crying_?"

"No," Carver lies, and he can't do this, not now. "Leave me _alone_."

Garrett's mouth wrenches into an awful shape. "Little brother. Maker, how can you--?" He grimaces, dropping a hand to the bannister as though he needs the support, but he does not look away. "Don't you even have a 'hello' for me?"

The thickness in Carver's throat threatens to choke him. "Can you just for once not make everything about _you_?"

That's hurt, blooming there in Garrett's face, and Carver should feel -- no, he does, he feels _rotten_ , because here is his _brother_ , and he should have come before, he should have said _something_ , and now it's too late.

Always, too late for the both of them.

"I have to go," Carver pleads, "just let me _go_."

It takes an age for Garrett to nod, to step off, and his eyes are unfathomably dark but all he says is, "As you wish."

Fenris tugs his hand and Carver goes with him, hollow but _so full_ , and it feels like breaking something all over again, but he can't fix it, maybe never could. Garrett can't help him, and even if he could Carver would never ask.

"Home?" Fenris prompts, out in the cooling afternoon air, and Carver nods, lets Fenris take his weight on one shoulder, too exhausted to resist.

"Take me home."

* * *

Hawke watches them go, but once the door is closed he turns to her, his expression the flat mask he wears when he does not want anyone to see the writhe of emotion beneath his surface.

"What happened?" 

He sounds calm but he isn't. She knows him too well to be fooled, and neither should he be. Merrill squares her shoulders, taking her hands back from the bannister, and breathes in.

"There was a demon," she says, and then she tells him everything, spooling it out slow and careful so it won't tangle in her mouth.

When she's wound down all he does is look at her through that mask, his mouth gone into a hard shape he has never turned on her before.

"And you didn't think this was something I might want to know?" There's magic burning under his skin; it flares now, spilling from him like smoke. "That my brother had a _demon_ in him, working his strings?"

"I thought you would want to keep it," she says sharply, because he deserves it. "I thought you might risk him to save the demon, and I couldn't let you."

"He's my _brother_ ," Hawke argues, hot now, magic in his eyes like fire. He sets his staff on the stairs, watching her like the hawk he is. "How could you think that of me?"

How could he _say_ that? "Because of Anders! Because ... wouldn't you?"

His mask cracks, and beneath it she catches a glimpse of his raw anger. "Oh, and you care so _much_ about Anders. But you aren't willing to make the effort to understand him, and I--"

"I understand him better than you!" 

Hawke's eyes go wide -- she realises her magic has bloomed about her in a fury, and she banks it immediately but it is still _there_ , writhing at her fingertips and ready to burn. She could ... she won't, but she _could_. If she didn't love him.

Does she, still?

"I think you hate him," Hawke says, and he sounds destroyed by this, as though speaking the words aloud have made them real for him, but he's wrong, so very wrong, and she can't tell him, because she _promised_. But. Surely she must.

 _Anders._ She feels along the bond stretched between them, knows Anders is in his clinic (knows too how weary and worn he is, but well enough, for him). Far away from this, should it come to a head. Good.

_Ma vhenan, will you forgive me?_

It doesn't matter if he doesn't, because some things are more important than her frail feelings, or whether someone (loves her?) will forgive her for breaking her word to him.

So she says, "Anders knows Vengeance is killing him," and before Hawke can protest she adds, "I think you know too, and I think you'd let him, if it meant you could have the demon for yourself."

And there, the shock in his face, and the guilt that spills into it now his mask has shattered into dust. He comes up, clutching the banister with fingers gone white from it, and he says, in a voice wrecked with emotions she cannot place, "Do you really believe me so selfish?"

"I believe you would do anything to get what you want," she tells him, as the halo of their magic crashes up one against the other, and it isn't a match anymore, does not catch and merge but sizzles instead like water on a hot iron, raw and teeth-rattlingly awful. 

"I would," he says, and she believes him because he _means_ it, but then-- "I would do _anything_ to keep the both of you, if you wanted to be kept. And Justice too," he adds, gone white as parchment now, "anything to keep you all safe."

"You can't save them both." He opens his mouth but she won't let him talk over her this time. "No, Hawke, you _can't_. You have to choose. And I choose Anders." _And if you stand against me then I will fight you for him, Elgar'nan guide me, I will_ do _it._

"I've never liked ultimatums," Hawke says, voice gone hard, like his face, which closes now as he turns away to stride down the stairs and across the hall on those long human legs. He stops in the doorway of his study but does not look back. "We'll talk about this tomorrow, when we've both calmed down." He pauses, but then-- "I wish you'd told me about Carver. I would have helped you."

 _But not with Anders._ He doesn't say it; she hears it all the same.

"I don't need your help," she tells him, and sees him nod before he goes in, the door closing behind him solid and final.

* * *

Carver gets his feet back under him on the stairs to Lowtown, and Fenris lets him go though he watches to make sure he won't fall. He's so pale it makes Fenris' teeth ache, ground together until he's afraid they will shatter to dust. Carver's face is wet, his limbs ungainly, his breath thick and pained, and Fenris wants more than anything to help him but there is nothing he can do.

Merrill did this. _I gave him back the pieces of himself that the demon had eaten,_ she said, and, _If I hadn't, he'd have been like Danarius,_ but what does that _mean_?

"Carver," Fenris calls, and he tries for gentle, the way he does when Tully cries and cries and will not stop. "Carver, will you ... what is wrong?"

He thinks Carver has not heard him, but then that heavy human jaw twists in his direction and Fenris feels his heart stop because Carver looks like a dying man, bleeding out here in the street.

"Please," Fenris begs, holding out his hands -- wrists up, fingers splayed -- and he cannot make the words come. _Tell me. What did she do to you? What did_ we _do to you?_

Carver's expression crumples . He clutches at a wall, one arm out to take his weight, and Fenris sees clearly how he is _older_ now, no longer Fenris' unsullied innocent, the lover who had given him everything and asked only for everything in return, the one Fenris murdered with lies. He's _this_ , a man who owes Fenris nothing more than the back of his hand, but all he does is squeeze his eyes shut, grimacing over some private horror, and shake his head.

"Why are you helping me?"

The question seems misplaced. "Because you have need of it."

"Why didn't you kill me?"

The thought of it, running Carver through like a beast at slaughter -- Fenris swallows hard on the knot of nausea in his throat. "Why would I do that?"

"Because. You were there. You saw it. I let a demon in." Disgust writhes across his face, his words thick with it, and he does not meet Fenris' eye. "You had every reason. Maker, you've killed people for less."

"I could not. Not you." It admits too much, Fenris knows, and he knows too that Carver ... He remembers what the demon said when he wore the face of Carver's Knight Captain. _Do you not love me?_ And Carver had said, _Yes,_ and that, oh ... Fenris has no right. What right he had he squandered himself years ago, and Carver owes him _nothing_.

Carver's expression is too raw to look at. "You knew, though. You _knew_. Was it-- I saw you at the Chantry."

Fenris nods, heavy with misery. He feels leaden, as if the lyrium has finally weighed him down to the ground.

"And Merrill?"

"I told her. I asked for her help."

There, the incredulity is an improvement, and Carver wipes his face absently on his sleeve as he stares. "You. Asked _Merrill_ for help." The sound he makes cannot possibly be a laugh, it is too broken. "Who are you? You can't be Fenris."

It isn't how it sounds, Fenris knows. And so he says, "I am a different fool now than the fool I once was." 

He sees comprehension dawn in Carver's face, followed by a wash of dull sadness. "I liked that fool," Carver says, but quick on the heels of it he shakes his head. "Fuck, Fenris, I'm sorry. I'm grateful, I just ... everything was ... I thought I had it under control. Things were good. I was better. And all this time he was _nesting_ in my head, and I ... I _did_ things, I think. I think he made me do things. Or, no. I did them myself, but he suggested. I think," and he looks up, the red rims of his eyes making them all the bluer, "he was lonely. We were _friends_. I remember, now."

That, the things Merrill gave back. All the pieces of him, pieces of _this_ , all at once, and _oh_ , it was meant as a kindness but it is still so _cruel_.

Fenris takes a breath, though his chest feels banded in iron. "I have no right to your forgiveness, but will you let me help you?"

When Carver hesitates Fenris thinks it a refusal, but finally he nods, straightening. Another spasm of guilty disgust passes over his face. He shakes it off, lifting his chin. He's white as snow, his mouth blue-tinged and weak. Fenris has never seen him like this, with the pale tracery of veins stark in his temples, and it aches because Fenris cannot touch him, soothe him with his body, kiss away the tremor of his lip.

"I will take you home," he says instead, and Carver, wonder of wonders, lets him.

They go silently, and Fenris does not touch him but is acutely aware of the human by his side, of the heaviness of his fists, the weight of his shoulders as they bow and shudder with each new blow. Carver is remembering things. Fenris knows only too well how it feels to be struck by the horror of things best left forgotten.

He stares out over the barge railing at at the wind-whipped sea, wishing he had words for Carver that could take this burden from him, and knowing he has none. If he were Varric ... but if he were Varric then the words would be show and no substance. If he were Sebastian, perhaps. But Carver has never liked Sebastian, and would not listen to him in any case. No, there is no-one but Fenris, who has nothing. 

He realises Carver is shaking, one hand pressed over his eyes, and he leans up against Carver's side. He can give this, can he not? If Carver allows it?

Carver does not pull away, but he clears his throat. "Paxley's dead. He died and it was my fault, and I stopped _caring_."

Now he has begun to care again. Fenris feels a grimace pull at his lip. "A demon did this to you. You are the victim, not the perpetrator of this evil."

"But I _let_ him. I'm a fucking _Templar_ , Fenris, and I ... I played Stones with him. Maker, he used to," and he hunches, face screwed up in a knot of shame. "He'd pretend to be _you_. And sometimes I'd pretend to believe him."

It's sickening. Fenris has no doubt as to the meaning of it, and he should be disgusted, should he not? He is, the thing is foul and awful and yet ... it is not Carver who disgusts him, but rather--

"Danarius," Fenris says, knowing he has left it unsaid for too long. "When he had me in thrall, he would torment me with fantasies. Of you." That much Carver knows, he thinks, but the rest... "Nearly always he killed you in the end. Sometimes I was made to do it myself. But sometimes he would first let me believe myself safe in your embrace. In your bed." It sticks in his throat but he makes himself say it. "I think he derived some dark pleasure from watching it. Or, in how much worse it made it when he took you from me again."

Carver shudders again, head bowed down almost to the railing. "I should have found you sooner."

But this is not what Fenris wanted. "You came as soon as you could. I do not think I have ever thanked you for it. Please accept my gratitude now."

It starts as a groan, but then it shifts, stuttering in Carver's throat, still not laughter but maybe the shadow of it. "I never wanted gratitude. I only wanted you to be _well_. I only wanted to help you."

"And so. I too want only that you are well." Because. That's it. He cannot ask for more than that. This is not _his_ Carver anymore. Though, if Carver wanted -- but Fenris cannot ask, and will not think of it again. So he tells himself.

"I'm a long way from bleeding _well_ ," Carver mutters, and he blows out a breath, eyes wrenched shut on whatever plays out behind his lids. "Thank-you. I can't believe you asked _Merrill_ for help. I bet you hated that. Like asking Anders."

"I did once ask Anders for his help," Fenris admits. Carver's expression, though, says how much he does not believe it. "It was painful, but I did it. It was necessary."

"And he helped you?"

"He did."

"Maker." Carver sounds wrecked. "You've changed," he says, as though this hurts him, but also... "Didn't know that was a thing you could do."

"It is a thing I have done. If I do not change I may as well be dead, is that not true?"

"Maybe. Still, I never thought ... Oh, _Fenris_." Carver puts his face in his hands, and Fenris does not know what to do. 

Over Carver's shoulder he can see the statues of the Twins, chained and weeping into their hands, and it fills him with a deep dread. Carver, shackled by his duty, a slave to it in a way Fenris has never understood could be taken on so _willingly_ , but...

_So I am for Tully, and for Orana, sister to me that she has been and is._

Maybe now it makes sense.

He reaches out, puts a hand to Carver's shoulder, and Carver allows it, does not shy away. "Will you be well, if I leave you in the Gallows?"

"Maker, I don't know." But Carver puts his shoulders up, spine going straight as a board, and he wipes his face on his sleeve again, sniffing up his tears. "Not like there's any other options for me."

There is one, and Fenris opens his mouth to say it; _Come with me. Make a home with me. Be mine and I will be yours._ But. He can't, it would be too selfish, and if Carver wanted it even a sliver then it would be too cruel when he knows -- knows now when he should have known all along -- how Carver values his duty.

The barge docks. Fenris cannot follow from here, exiled from the Gallows as he is, so he braves himself to squeeze Carver's shoulder. "If you need of me, I will."

Carver nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I ... thanks." 

He shakes himself and walks onto the Gallows dock, still so _awful_. Fenris looks up. The Twins lurk in the distance, great terrible reminders of what this place once was and still is, and when Fenris looks back he cannot help but see Carver walking into a prison, or a tomb. Standing at the foot of the stairs as though in the bottom of a grave. _I will never see him again._ There is no reason to feel so but he does, and it takes everything he has not to leap across the water-gap betwixt barge and dock, and clutch Carver to his chest.

But.

Carver walks up, and Fenris cannot shake his premonition that this is the last he will ever see of Carver. The Gallows swallows him whole, cloaking him in her shadow, and Fenris turns his face away like a coward because there is nothing else he can do.


	40. Chapter 40

Everything hurts. Just the press of his boots hurts him, the constriction of his clothes on skin too sensitive to take it, Carver hates it, hates all of it, and yet. It's a thing to be borne, so he bears it, though the tug of fabric against him _hurts_ , and his thoughts ...

Maker, he's been so _wrong_.

Fenris...

Resolutely, he does not think of Fenris, just walks up to the foot of the stair (though he senses the pressure of Fenris' eyes on him even now) and wipes his face on his sleeve in hopes of hiding how fucked he is from his brethren.

It's useless; he can feel them staring at him as he goes up past the afternoon shift and down the corridors of the Gallows. Maker, this place. Home, but he hates how _good_ it had felt to walk into his mother's house and be welcomed there. Even Garrett had--

He doesn't think about Garrett. It's too much, just now.

And then--

"Maker's _breath_!" It's Selwyn, bright and lovely as always, _fuck_ , how did Carver ever ignore him? He has a hand on Carver's shoulder, fingers gone tight on his sleeve. "Are you well, ser knight?"

No. He's everything but, but he steels himself, shoves his shoulders back, and glares at Selwyn as hot as he can. "I'm _fine_."

Selwyn doesn't believe him, twitters at him instead, and he means well so Carver can't just shout him off. "Are you headed to the infirmary? I should go with you."

"No. I need to see the Knight Captain."

Selwyn nods, fingers coming up high on Carver's collar. "Do you need healing?"

Does he? But he knows Selwyn isn't good at matters of the mind, and it's his _mind_ that is injured now. "There's nothing you can do."

Still, Selwyn comes with him, one hand hard on his arm, and when they reach the door to Cullen's office Selwyn lets him go, but the look on his face says exactly what he thinks of it. "Will you be well?"

It reminds him hard of Fenris -- _Will you be well, if I leave you in the Gallows?_

He still doesn't know, but he nods and makes an effort to stand up straight. "I'll be fine."

Selwyn frowns, but he lets Carver go. "If you have need of me," he says, and again Carver cannot help but remember those words from another mouth. _If you need of me, I will._

He cannot bring himself to thank Selwyn, just signals the knight on duty to announce him, and when he's called he goes in.

Cullen is at his desk, rising to his feet, armed and armoured and the Knight Captain that Carver needs right now, though ... really, maybe it's soft-Cullen he wants, the one who will be kind to him.

No. _No_. He doesn't deserve that, and neither does Cullen. So, when Cullen says, "Hawke? Maker, are you well?" Carver sets his feet.

He tells it as simply as he can. There has been a demon in him for _so long_ , and he's been such a fool. It's gone now, but a demon, _lodged_ in him like a burr, and this whole time ... He tries to say, "But that doesn't change anything, ser, I still--" except Cullen has gone so pale Carver thinks he might be going to sick up.

" _Hawke_ ," Cullen breathes, but he stops there, squeezing his eyes shut, silenced by the horror of whatever it is playing out behind his lids. "Oh, my Maker."

"My Captain?"

Cullen shudders, and when he opens his eyes he stares at the desk and will not look up. "How could you?"

How could he ... what? Be so foolish? "I'm sorry. Maker, I'm so sorry, I've been such a fool," but Cullen is shaking his head, his shoulders gone stiff and awful.

"How _could_ you?" He rears back from the desk, hands gone to fists before him, and for a horrible moment Carver thinks he might reach for his sword, but he does not. "I cannot believe it."

What can he say? "It's true, though."

"I cannot believe you did not know this." He lifts his fists and they shake. "How could you not _know_?"

There's no good answer to that, or at least Carver has none. "Ser, I'm _sorry_."

"No doubt you are." 

His voice is so cold, this thin stiff thing that has no room for sympathy, and Carver thinks, _This is it, he's finally truly disappointed in me._ He can't believe it's taken this long. 

"It changes nothing." For a moment Carver thinks, _Oh!_ but Cullen goes on, and he's hard as ice now, his hands going down to grip the edge of his desk. "If it's true what you say, then there has been a demon _running loose in my Gallows_ , and I have allowed it to flourish."

Does he blame himself? Carver shakes his head. "This isn't your fault."

"Isn't it?" The rictus of his mouth is so far from a smile that Carver recoils from it in shock. "If not then the only person I have to blame is _you_. Or ... tell me, who was it that cleared this demon from you?"

It sounds like a threat. Carver hesitates and Cullen sees it; he must, because his expression tightens into something forbidding and awful.

"The _blood mage_ , Hawke. Only a blood mage could know for certain that you are _clean_ now. Give me his name, and perhaps I can deflect some of the blame from you."

Oh. _Oh._ Carver can't, he just can't. Betraying Merrill now ... no, he won't do it. "I can't tell you that, ser."

" _Why?_ " The snap of it is sharp and horrible, and Cullen slams a fist into the desk hard enough that his inkwell jumps and tips over, spilling black across the papers on his desk. Cullen pays it no mind, however, his attention fixed on Carver in a way that Carver has never wanted, that makes him quail in his boots. "Is your brother so far gone that he--"

"It wasn't Garrett," Carver protests, because _fuck_ no, this isn't about _him_. "Ser, you have to believe me, my brother didn't know a thing about it."

"Then _give me a name_!" And Carver has never heard the Knight Captain's voice raised like this, never seen him so wild, the threat of a Smite hanging heavy in the air between them. "Maker bless us! You come to me and say you have been _cleared_ of a demon, and you expect me to trust you but you won't tell me who it was that told you so? Do not mistake me, Hawke, it will go very badly for you if you do not surrender him."

Carver can't. He won't give Merrill up, and he won't blame his brother for something Garrett _didn't do_. "I'll take whatever punishment you have for me, ser, but I won't answer that." _Not even for you._

The noise that tears itself from Cullen's throat is the groan of a dying man, and the way he slumps ... Carver lifts a hand, wanting only to soothe him, but Cullen jerks back, as if he did not already have the barrier of the desk between them.

"Do not _touch me_."

It's awful. Carver lets his hand fall, and in the midst of his misery this is fresh and _worse_ because ... because Cullen doesn't trust him. " _Ser_."

"Do not 'ser' me now!" 

He looks ... oh, exactly how Carver feels. Wrecked and awful, and this is worse than anything he's ever imagined because Cullen seems ruined, and Carver has brought this on him when all he ever wanted to give him was his loyalty and his-- 

"I offer you one last chance, Hawke. A name, and I will do everything in my power to protect you."

There's no way out. Carver knows he won't, and he knows too, with a horrible certainty, that Cullen will not forgive him for this. So, he says, "No," and braces himself for the consequences.

Cullen closes his eyes. "Very well." He takes a breath, lets it go, and takes another, the swell of it shoring him up for whatever he is going to do next. "Then you are confined to your quarters until further notice."

He'd been expecting to be whipped, and this is both better and worse. At least a whipping would be clean. "You're confining me?"

His Knight Captain fixes him with a cold and terrible glare. "Would you expect less? For the crime of bringing a demon into the Gallows and _keeping_ it from me -- Hawke, how could you think--"

"I thought you _loved_ me," Carver snaps, and why not? He's ruined everything else, might as well ruin this too.

Cullen makes a weak sound, propping himself up on his fists and ... no, no, he's haggard now, almost grey with the weight of it all, and it hurts to see. "For my sins." When he meets Carver's eye his own are hard and narrow, the shadows beneath them gathered like stormclouds. "Do not for a moment imagine my heart unbroken by this."

 _Oh._ How shattered he looks now. Carver has brought this on him with his frail foolishness, and it aches to know how utterly he has ruined everything good he had left, but it hurts worse to know that he has done this _to Cullen_ , who trusted him.

"I didn't want to hurt you." It isn't enough. He knows it as the words leave his mouth, but he needs to say it and for Cullen to hear it. But Cullen has gone hard as slate, the terrible Knight Captain that Carver stopped fearing a long time ago, and it stabs him deep to feel afraid of him now.

"You brought a demon _to my bed_. Knowing, as you do, how I," but he breaks off, mouth firming. "What did you think would happen?"

"I didn't plan this!" Maker, what can he _do_? "Cullen! You know I would never--"

"And yet it has come to pass." He straightens, shoulders rigid and brittle as stone. "Tell me, Hawke, if you will tell me nothing else: how long has this demon ridden you?"

He doesn't know. "Years, I think." It seems like years since he's felt everything as cleanly as he feels it now.

Cullen is made of iron, cold and implacable. "And in all that time, can you swear to me that no word has passed your lips that the demon put into your mouth?"

"No, ser, I can't," Carver says, knowing how he condemns himself but unable to lie to Cullen about this.

His Knight Captain shudders, but his expression is firm. "Then, as I have said. You are confined to your quarters, indefinitely. Quarantined, for I cannot risk that another knight be tainted by the contagion you have brought among us."

Carver opens his mouth to protest, but Cullen makes a sharp gesture and turns away.

"Get out of my sight, Ser Carver."

Ah! That hurts worse than the rest, the cool dismissal, as if Carver were nothing. But-- "As you command, my Captain." He salutes, Fereldan-style, because it's _Cullen_ , and even if Cullen hates him now Carver cannot hate him back.

He walks out, turns on his heel in the corridor to march himself to his room, and his heart feels _torn_ , because ... Cullen was supposed to _understand_. Or, at least, to listen.

He shuts the door of his room, and sits down on the bed, feeling ... just empty. No, he's not. He's _angry_ , and this is all so unfair. But it isn't, he knows that, knows he'd be hard on one of his own who confessed the same to to him. _I'd have listened,_ he tells himself, but he remembers Kerran and the rumours about demons Kerran had carried with him like a millstone, and he thinks, _Maker, I'm no better._ Poor Kerran. Fuck, poor _him_ , bleating about it to Cullen like a lack-witted _idiot_. But what else could he have done? Lied about it? And what if Cullen had told him the same thing, had brought a demon to _his_ bed, all unknowing?

 _I'd have trusted him,_ he thinks, and he tells himself it's true, even though he really can't be sure of anything, anymore.

* * *

They come for him in the night, the door banging open hard enough that he startles from a fitful sleep almost upright before there's a hand on his shoulder and another wrenching an arm up behind his back.

"On your _feet_."

"What the _void_ \--?" but they have him up now, and he's in smalls and shirtsleeves but they march him out all the same, past the knights on guard outside his door -- they look away but he knows them (Merriwether and Krauss) and he won't forget this easily.

He's not surprised that they throw him in a cell, but he _is_ surprised that it's one of the ones set aside for mages, glyphs against magic worked into the stone on every side. The rest of the cells are full -- this comes as a shock -- and they put him in the one of the end, the one where they'd kept Danarius. He hates that more than the rest, to be honest.

"Can I get some bloody _pants_?" he demands, but the knights who've taken him just lock the gate and walk away. He won't forget them, either -- Miika and Carfael, Knight Corporal Finlay in command -- and he's swears he'll have some kind of revenge on them at some point.

But. Shit. They're probably just following orders.

He paces until he gets too cold and has to wrap a musty threadbare blanket about himself, and then he curls up on the straw in the corner. Curse it. Curse it _all_.

He can see into the other cell across the way, and it's occupied, but the occupant ignores him so thoroughly that he quickly forgets they even exist.

There's no windows in his cell, and the air is dull and heavy, so he has no idea how long it is before Miika comes back to toss trousers and socks through the bars at him. Socks. He hadn't asked for them, but once they're on he feels much, much better. A small luxury, he supposes, when they haven't brought him any water.

He can hear mages in the other cells, moaning and groaning and farting to themselves in their misery. He's in with _the mages_ and the indignity of it smothers him until he thinks: if they were really worried about contagion then he'd be as far away from mages as anyone could possibly get him. No. This is about _punishment_. Maker, that's so much worse.

He's got nothing to distract him, so he sits on his dank straw and _broods_. How long is this going to last? What are they planning on doing to him next? Did Cullen order this? Did he ... does he hate Carver so badly now he'd rather see Carver in a cell than just _hear him out_?

One of the Tranquil brings him dinner eventually, some lumpy chaff in lukewarm water, and his first thought is to just kick it through the bars in outrage, but then he thinks about it and chokes it down. They might starve him. Fuck, he's so _fucked_.

At least there's a half-ration of lyrium with it, and he drinks that eagerly but already he can feel the shadows stealing in on him. It's not enough. Maker, they could just cut him off and he'd go mad in here, mad as Danarius did, at the end.

When the Tranquil -- Steva, her name is _Steva_ \-- comes back for the tray, Carver hands it over, and says, "I want to see the Knight Captain."

The Tranquil regards him with the same flatness they all do. "There will be no visitors for you."

"But the Knight Captain..." and he trails off, sure but so very unsure that Cullen might...

Steva gives him nothing, is calmly resolute, and he should expect nothing less of her. "The Knight Commander has ordered that you receive no visitors."

So Cullen sold him out to Meredith. Carver bites down on what he wants to say to that, and tries instead, "Did anyone ask?"

For a long moment, Steva just looks at him, her face as blank and expressionless as any of her kind. But then she says, "Not to my knowledge." And she takes the tray away.

Carver tries not to pace but he keeps _doing_ it. There's nothing else _to_ do.

"Expecting something?"

Carver looks up. The mage in the cell across the way is sitting up and looking at him, and Carver hates the attention, so he's a bit sharp. "The fuck you care."

The mage laughs, such a ragged, hopeless sound, and Carver comes up to the bars to peer across at her. He doesn't -- no, he _does_ recognise her. Patria, a senior mage but no Enchanter, and he's caught her out after curfew before, given her stern warnings but no penances or punishments, and the sly tilt of her eyes is familiar and annoying.

She sighs, lying in her nest of straw, and lifts a hand to wave. "We're all of us in this together, ser knight. Never thought I'd see one of _you_ down here, though."

Carver would never have expected it either, so he supposes that's a reasonable thing to say. "And here we are." 

He means it to be an end, but she nods, looking serious, and says, "Brethren together in our incarceration, in a way even you can't deny."

It sounds ... he hates how it sounds. "What d'you mean, even me?"

"Well, if Meredith's got so bad she's locking up her _knights_ , then even a Templar can't pretend everything's all right." She grins, a nasty rictus, and Carver hates it so much. "Or can you?"

"I never pretended it was all right," he snaps, and Patria eyes him for a long moment before nodding.

"No. I suppose you never did." Then she sighs and stretches long arms above her head. "It won't save you, playing along with her mad logic. If you want to get out of here then you'll have to be _clever_." Her grin is insufferable, but he must suffer it, trapped behind two layers of bars as he is, or ignore her. "You always struck me as ... not clever."

"Stupid, is that it? You calling me stupid, now?"

"There's a lot of room between 'clever' and 'not very clever'," she says, leaned up against the wall as if it's actually comfortable to lie on straw-strewn stone. "If you decide that means I called you stupid, then that's your own business."

Carver has nothing for that. She's aggravating, but no more than most mages he's ever met. And she's the only person he has to talk to. It's strange, though, that she'd choose to converse with him _now_.

He doesn't call her on it, too thankful that she's even speaking to him. It's awfully lonely here. Without her he'd have only his own thoughts, such as they are, and they go in circles: there was a demon; Cullen rejected him; he's been such a fool; here he is now, ruined by his own foolishness; Cullen rejected him and _Fenris did not_.

Maker, he's so alone.

"Why are you even here?" he asks, because she's a bit of trouble but not a lot, not a _problem_ , so how did she end up in a cell? (He knows how _he_ ended up here, but her story can't be that sordid, can it?)

She laughs again, and this time it's hollow. "I made friends with someone who was a very, very bad friend to me. How about you?"

Carver thinks, and honestly, it's the same thing. "Me too. Only," _mine was a demon_ , "I should have known better."

She makes a disgusted noise, and shakes her head. "What fools we've been. And justly punished for it." Then she sighs, propping herself up on an elbow. "I suppose she used you. Your bad friend."

There's no easy way to say it, and no reason, so Carver says nothing. 

Still, Patria nods. "How cruel. You know, I never realised how _transactional_ friendships are until I found myself in one where I routinely offered more than I was given in return." She rolls her head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling of her cell. "I know better, now, though I fear I will never have opportunity to put that knowledge into practice."

Carver might not be clever but he knows a thing or two, and one of them is how the Gallows works, so he scoffs. "They're not going to execute you for--" but he doesn't know why she's here, still, and maybe he's being naive. "Whatever you've done. They'd have done it already, if they were going to."

"So little you know." She pulls herself up, now, crawling over until she's down on her face, showing him only her back. "Go to sleep, Ser Knight. I'm done with you."

And now all he has is himself, so he hunkers down in his nest of straw, angry with her but also ... also eager for her to talk to him again.

* * *

Carver thinks and _thinks_ , and all his thinking comes to this: he has to tell someone what's happening to him, even if they can't do anything about it. They need to _know_. Cullen must already know, may have ordered it himself (and how that _burns_ , so he tries not to think of it, though it hovers always in the periphery of his mind). Someone, though. Who can he tell?

He waits, and Patria chats to him and laughs at him from time to time, but only in short bursts before she tires of him and refuses to speak to him about anything at all.

When Ser Moira comes, Carver is so desperate for company of his own that he nearly weeps.

"You sorry little bastard," she says, leaning up against his bars and looking ... blank about it all. "I knew you'd end up wrong, but I never thought you'd end up _here_."

"Are they all right?" He has so many questions for her, but his one is paramount. "Barker and Rue and ... you're friends with Hugh. Is he all right?"

"Hughsie's fine," she says, watching him with flat blue eyes that give away nothing. "Bent out of shape over all this, but well enough. I guess Ruvena's okay, though," and she makes a face, "I never did get why she liked you so bad. You don't nearly deserve it."

Well. He can't argue with that. Still. "And Barker?"

"Fit as a fiddle." She smirks, curling her gauntlets around the bars of his cell. "He's made so many petitions it's a fucking _joke_. Ruining his career, he is. Needs someone to tell him to shut it, before he's kicked out on his arse for questioning orders."

That's ... terrible. "Can you tell him," Carver starts, but Moira shakes her head.

"I'm not allowed to carry tales for you, Hawke. Not gunna try, even. Not worth my commission."

Maker. Carver makes fists of his hands and lets them fall down beside his thighs. It's hopeless. 

"What about the Knight Captain?" he asks, and the way her eyes widen makes him wince. He's said it now, though, no going back. "Is he... Can I see him?"

"He's a fucking _wreck_ , Hawke. Don't think he'll be coming down here any time soon." She's too knowing, her mouth curling into a nasty smirk. "You messed that one up right good."

Maker. Carver wants to put his face in his hands, wants to yell at her, wants to grab Cullen and shake him until he... What? Forgives him? That's never going to happen. 

And Moira just keeps _smirking_ at him, as if this is all of it hilarious, and _Maker_ he wants to bust her lip for it.

"What do you want, Ser Moira?" He makes his hands into fists, but does not get up off the floor. "Just come to make fun of the idiot who got himself thrown in the dungeons?"

"Mostly." She shifts her feet, leaning her weight up against the bars of his door. But there's something in her face... "I like your friend, though. The pirate."

It's ... no, that's ridiculous. "I can't put in a good word for you with Isabela while I'm _locked in a cell_."

But Moira shrugs. "Not asking you to. Just saying."

Okay. Carver _thinks_. "She'd probably ... if you told her I was locked up, she might--" but he doesn't know what Isabela would do with that information, and anyway Moira's shaking her head.

"Can't do that, Hawke. Sorry," she adds, and she sounds it, just a little.

"What _can_ you do for me, then?" Because right now she's about as useful as a spent cock, and he shouldn't antagonise her, he knows it, but he can't help himself.

She hesitates, licking her lip. "Could get you an extra blanket," she says slowly. "A book, maybe. Or a confessor."

That gives him pause, because-- "My confessor's Brother Sebastian."

She rolls her eyes. "'Course he is. You want him, then? Get it all off your chest?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that ... yeah." He has no idea what Sebastian might do, either, but he's better than nothing. "And a blanket, if there's one going."

She nods, pushing away from the bars. "I'll see what I can do. No promises."

And then she's gone, and he's alone in the cell again, Patria watching him with wide bright eyes from across the way. 

Better than nothing. He hopes so, anyway, because right now nothing is all he's got.


	41. Chapter 41

Sebastian has been in the Gallows many times, has walked up the steps into the stronghold proper, has ministered to the Templars and mages there, and spent his time in the classrooms, teaching the Chant and its application to those who are loose in it. But he has never gone so deep, never walked down the narrow stairs to the dungeons, and it is ... squalid. Awful. Oppressive in a way he has not felt before, as though the air around him is dead.

The knight who summoned him leads him to the end of the row, past all these barred cells, and he cannot help looking in. They are all occupied, and the people in there are wretched. Their robes give them away -- they are mages, clearly. That in the Gallows they imprison mages for crimes committed against the Maker is no secret nor surprise, but so _many_ of them seems excessive. Some of the cells have multiple occupants. There is hardly room in each for _one_. What are the Templars thinking?

And then he comes to the last cell on the right, where he finds Carver Hawke sitting on a filthy blanket on a pile of straw, another blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

It comes as a shock, though he had been told _why_ he was summoned here. For some reason he had expected Carver's cell to be different. A bed, perhaps. A table and chair. Night-soil facilities more elaborate than a bucket and a handful of straw. 

Carver surges to his feet. " _Sebastian_ ," and he has never in his life looked so relieved to see him. He staggers, has clearly sat still for too long, and takes him a moment to right himself. "I didn't think--" but he breaks off, biting his lip.

How haggard he looks, with the stubble come up dark on his jaw and smoky circles under his eyes. How young, too, beneath the weight of his woes, too young to bear what has befallen him.

Sebastian does his best to keep his face smooth, to allow Carver some remaining dignity. "Greetings in the Light of the Maker, Hawke," he says, and then he glances at his escort. "You will, of course, let me go in."

She gives him a hard look. "I'll have to search you, for that. It's dangerous, too."

"You may search me. Here," and he unsheathes his belt-knife, offering it to her hilt-first. "I am not otherwise armed, but I understand that you may not believe it."

She takes the knife, pats him down, and he thinks she does not do a thorough job of it, that there are many ways he could have smuggled something in with which to help their prisoner free himself. Or for Sebastian to murder him. She does not seem to care.

"Face against the wall, Hawke," the knight says, keys jangling in her hand. "Arms over your head."

Carver does as he's told, and then she has the gate open, and Sebastian goes in to let her lock it behind him. 

"You've got _one_ glass," she says, and then she walks away.

Carver turns, and he looks ... Maker's Light, Sebastian has never seen him so ill. "Are you well?" he asks, and Carver just snorts, as if it's the most foolish thing Sebastian could possibly have said.

"I'm locked in a cell under the Gallows," he says, leaning against the wall. "What do you think?"

Of course he's angry about it. Sebastian nods, pulling his robes around himself. It's beastly cold down here, and Carver has only stockings on his feet. The merciless stone must oppress him horribly.

"Shall we sit? Or kneel?"

Carver makes an angry sound, but he slides down the wall until he's on the floor. He holds himself tight, just a ball of furious misery, and Sebastian kneels beside him, lifting a hand to rest it on Carver's shoulder.

"Blessed is the Maker always, now and ever," Sebastian begins, but Carver catches his wrist and clutches it too tight.

"I don't need confession," he says, low and quick, his eyes coming up haunted by whatever it is that has led him to this place. "I need you to do something for me."

"I am here as your confessor, Hawke," Sebastian says, equally low. "Everything you say to me must be sealed to that, otherwise I will no doubt be made to report it to Knight Commander Meredith." Which, he suspects, Carver would not want.

The sound Carver makes is wretched, and he squeezes his eyes shut. "Won't you help me? I thought ... but of course you won't. Why would you?"

"Why should I not?" Sebastian asks, because Carver has never trusted him, and he wishes he would. "I am not your enemy, Hawke. I have believed us friends, these last few years. Forgive me if I have been wrong about that."

Carver makes a face. "No. You're not wrong, I guess. I ... ugh. I used to hate you."

This is something Sebastian had suspected but never had confirmed, and now ... "Used to?"

"I don't anymore, obviously." Carver lets go of his wrist, hands going to fists on his knees, and he looks so exhausted that Sebastian has to curb the urge to smooth the hair from Carver's brow. "I should probably confess about that. Shouldn't I?"

"Only if you feel it would help you. I think that there are more important things you want to say, however, and any hatred you may have felt for me is small beside whatever it is that has brought you here."

Carver glances up, surprise twisting his features. "They didn't tell you?"

"You have committed some crime, obviously. What that is, I do not know. It is up to you to tell me, if you wish."

"And you'll keep that secret? Under your seal," he says, with such disdain.

But-- "I must," Sebastian tells him, because it is true. 

Carver takes a deep breath and blows it out, and it is as though he breathes out all his resistance with it. "Okay. Okay, I'll try ... fuck, this might take a while."

So he tells his story, and Sebastian does his best not to flinch from it. A demon, a long slow possession, and Carver admits he should have known better, seems ruined by the knowledge of it. But he says also that the demon was kind to him, at times, and that he is hurt now to realise how the demon used him. He does not say the last in so many words but it is obvious, and Sebastian nods, listens, does not let judgement show in his face.

He doesn't say their names, but it's clear to Sebastian who it was that extricated his demon. All Carver says is that they've demanded he turn _her_ in, but he won't, and that is the real reason he's in the cell. He thinks. He can't be sure.

Last -- and Carver says it so low and so quick Sebastian has to lean close to make out the words -- he tells how he betrayed his Captain, and how he wishes, of all of it, that he could have that back. That he'd almost have kept the demon, if it had meant keeping Cullen too. What he doesn't say is louder than what he does -- Sebastian stifles a sigh because of _course_. Carver Hawke is the kind of man who mixes love and loyalty together, and is too honestly passionate not to indulge his lustfulness where his heart is entangled. At least he _is_ honest in it, Sebastian will give him that much.

And, through it all, Sebastian hears his loneliness, and wishes Carver could have said it all to him before it came to this.

Sebastian touches him, light on the bone of his collar. "You are not as unloved as you believe," he says, and Carver bows his head, not quite weeping but close, Sebastian thinks. "Your brother cares for you, more than you know."

"He can't do anything," Carver says, and he sniffs, tossing his head to hide his hurt. "Never been any use to me, that one."

"Perhaps now he will prove his love for you."

It's almost-but-not-quite a platitude, and Carver's expression says exactly how much he rejects it. "How? You're not going to tell him what's going on. He won't even know. Maker, they're going to starve me of lyrium down here, and I'll go mad, and _he'll never know_."

"He'll know," Sebastian says, and he cannot tell the elder Hawke the details of this but he vows, in his heart, that Hawke will know _something_.

Carver doesn't seem to believe it, but he says the words when Sebastian invites him to pray, accepts the oil Sebastian touches to his brow and his mouth to cleanse him of his sins.

"I wish you wouldn't go," he says at the last, but the glass is empty, and the knight at the gate is so impatient, and Sebastian _must._

"Be righteous, in the eyes of the Maker," Sebastian says, but even before he sees the wrench of Carver's mouth he knows the words are hollow and useless.

Carver is not a bad man, he thinks, perhaps a good man. Could almost be a great man, if he had his chance, though Sebastian suspects that he will never be allowed it.

He weathers a summons to Knight Commander Meredith, and is shocked by how gaunt she is, how sharp-edged and _cruel_. She calls him 'Prince Sebastian' twice, her mouth writhing around the word as though it tastes of rot, and both times he corrects her as politely as he can but she does not seem to care. He tells her that he has taken Carver's confession and given him absolution. Then, carefully, he recommends that Carver be removed from the dungeon and placed in a cell more appropriate to a Knight Lieutenant of the Order.

Meredith scoffs. "Do not interfere in Gallows matters, _priest_."

That too seems rotten in her mouth, and Sebastian presses his lips into a firm line, determined to give her nothing. 

Eventually, and clearly disgusted, she lets him go. He takes the barge back to Kirkwall's dock, and then...

He stops on the stair to Hightown. Perhaps he should tell Elthina of Meredith's demeanour. She did not look well, and her manner was erratic. Would Elthina do anything about it, though? She is less and less of the world these days, hours spent in prayer and contemplation and what, to Sebastian, looks very much like simply staring out the window while Kirkwall stumbles along without her.

Elthina can wait. Sebastian did promise, after all, even if he only promised himself.

So he takes one turn instead of another, and ends up on the doorstep of the Amell estate, still unsure what, if anything, he can say.

He is shown in by Hawke's dwarven servant, who seems distracted. "Come in, Messere," he says, eyes flickering away to the pile of trunks and baggage against the wall of the entry hall, but he smiles up at Sebastian the same as always. "If you'll wait a moment?"

Sebastian waits. It is not long, and then he's shepherded into the study. The room is nicely appointed, handsomely so, and Sebastian is as always reminded of the sumptuous rooms of his childhood. Though, this is not so nice as those; the Princes of Starkhaven spent a lot of coin in making themselves ostentatiously comfortable, Sebastian thinks, and this is by comparison simply comfortable. Very much so, but not particularly ostentatious.

The elder Hawke is not in attendance. The room is empty, save for its pleasant furnishings, and in a moment Bodahn comes in with a tea-tray, and invites Sebastian to help himself.

Sebastian does, fills his cup and takes it with him on a short round of the study. There are so many books, and most of them nothing like the things Sebastian had at home in Starkhaven. He pulls a criticism of the Chantry down from a shelf, opens it up to flick one-handed over the contents, and his eyes catch on a passage: _Though the Chant is truly the holy words of Andraste, it is simply the application that is wrong. To reject the dissonant verses is to_ bleach _the Chant, and render it luke-warm and milk-soft when it should instead be a bulwark against the dark._

He cannot disagree with that, but he is still pondering it when the door opens.

"Sebastian." Hawke smiles, but it is not a real smile, and Sebastian knows it so because he smiles this same smile all day, every day -- but at least Hawke is trying.

"Hawke," he says, closing the book and sliding it back into place. "I trust you are well?"

"I'm alive," Hawke says, and he says it so lightly, but the lightness cannot disguise the weight of his shoulders as he bows over the tea-table. "Is this a tea conversation, or would your Chantry allow a little brandy to go with it?"

"If you want brandy, please do not let me stop you." But Hawke cocks his head, waiting, and Sebastian amends his words to, "I will allow it, even if the Chantry disapproves."

"Don't let me press you, if you don't want, but you're very welcome if you do." Hawke pulls two glasses from a cabinet, and a decanter with them, pouring two measures into each. "If you don't want, I'll drink it for you."

Sebastian finds that he does want, and Hawke's rough hospitality is welcome just now, so he takes up the other glass. "I saw your brother today."

" _Oh_." Hawke sinks into a chair, tipping his brandy back and forth in the glass and looking grim about it. "He came here, did you know? Not to see me."

Sebastian realises that Hawke is already the worse for drink. He does not show it easily, but there is a careful deliberation in his movements, to counter the natural sloppiness of a drunk, and Sebastian wonders if now is the time to say all this. But if not now then _when_? There is no other time for this.

"Your brother has been imprisoned in the Gallows. Locked up in a cell. I believe he wanted you to know."

Hawke pales, and Sebastian knows he has done the right thing. "What the void did he do?"

Sebastian can't tell him what Carver said. To keep it from Hawke, though, is more cruel than kind, so he says as much as he can. "I think you know, Hawke."

Hawke leans forward, his glass cradled in his hands, and he looks bereft, lost in the wash of whatever he feels -- Sebastian has always known that he _feels_ things, and also that he does everything he can to hide those things with laughter. Sebastian looks away, giving back what privacy he can, and waits.

"Merrill tore a demon out of him," Hawke says, and it sound like it bleeds him to admit it. Sebastian cannot even nod, so he does nothing. "Maker. Did he tell them that? That _idiot_ , I can't-- No, I can believe it." Hawke drags a hand over his face, and he seems aged by it all, withered and worn. "I suppose he thought the Amell name might protect him. What a little fool."

"I do not believe he has ever felt the Amell name would do him any good," Sebastian says, because Carver deserves this, at least. "Nor the name of Hawke, either. I believe he has felt both to be only liabilities to him."

Hawke closes his eyes, and Sebastian feels sorry for him. He has seen how Hawke cares for his brother, and he has felt how Carver must perceive it, because he has himself been a younger brother and he remembers how Emmet despaired over him but still, he thinks, loved him in his way. Hard to see, in the depths of it, but now that it's been taken from him he wishes only that he could have it back again, the painful constriction of his eldest brother's love. Never good enough. Always the baby. Nothing, as far as anyone else was concerned, but --

_"Seb! Hold this for me." A rope, and Sebastian held it, because his brother told him to, and because he knew that one day Emmet would be Prince of Starkhaven, and Sebastian one of his knights._

_"Hold tight," Emmet said, and Sebastian did, and later, when it all came to disaster, Emmet stood in front of him and claimed responsibility, even as Mathinder blamed Sebastian for all of it._

It was never easy. Now Sebastian envies Carver in that his brother is still alive, and they still have a chance to make good of it all.

"I'm surprised he told you any of this," Hawke says, not opening his eyes. "I didn't know you were particular friends."

There is an accusation in it -- Hawke envies him for this 'particular friendship' and Sebastian shakes his head because it is not that, not at all. "I am his confessor. He tells me many things I cannot divulge. And that is the role I played today, called down to the Gallows to hear the confession of a condemned prisoner." 

Hawke shudders. "A _prisoner_. I have to go after him, Sebastian. You know that, don't you?"

And Sebastian cannot argue against it. "He is your brother. Of course you must." Knowing Hawke as he does there is no other answer.

He watches as Garret draws up his hands, covering his face with them as though that might keep the truth at bay. "Maker. I don't know ... give me a moment."

Sebastian sips from his glass, the brandy expensively smooth on his tongue, and watches as the elder Hawke drags his hands down to his chin while he sorts through options -- he knows this look, he has seen it before. Hawke balancing the odds, the risk, the outcomes, and coming up with if not the best solution then the best solution for _him_.

"All right. All _right_." Hawke looks him full in the eye, and there is an awful desperation in that look, shown only for a moment before it is gone behind his usual mask of unwavering confidence. "I suppose this is why I have an invitation from Orsino for tomorrow." He shakes his shaggy head. "I'll go down in the morning to get him back. Maker, I need to trade them something ... any ideas?" And he grins but it's hollow, a shadow of the Hawke that Sebastian had met so many years ago. It's painful to see.

"I have nothing."

"Not even your support? I'd welcome it, if you had any for me."

"Support for what, exactly?"

Hawke looks so disappointed. "I don't want Kirkwall for myself. But I'd take it if ... you know." How many times have they debated the 'if' and the 'you know' back and forth?'

And still Sebastian does not want it. "Don't make your plans with me in mind. I have nothing with which to support you in that way."

"But you'll come with me to the Gallows, tomorrow," Garret asks, leaning forward in appeal, as though the other thing had never happened, "to get my brother back?"

He's so _earnest_. If only Emmet had ever -- But Sebastian cannot help hearing Hawke's selfishness. "Whatever good a brother in the Chantry can do, I will do," he says.

Hawke makes a face. "I don't want a Chantry brother of you, Sebastian. I want the _archer_. Will you be that for me, tomorrow?"

Begging without begging, and Sebastian does not want to deny him. But. "I cannot be anything other than what I am, Hawke, and that is a Priest of Andraste."

Hawke wilts, breathing out a long sigh and dropping his head against the rest of his chair. "Can the priest at least bring his bow?"

"I won't help you _break him out_ ," Sebastian says sharply. "But ... should matters run to violence, I _may_ help you escape it."

"I suppose I'll settle for that, then, if I must." Hawke gives him a level look, one that's harder than perhaps he intends. "You're not doing this for me, though, are you?"

No, he isn't. He's doing it for a young man in a cell who never deserved this, and another young man in another cell, years ago, who vowed he'd never speak to his brothers again and then never had the chance.

But he smiles, and says, "If it is to your benefit, then why should you mind my motivations?"

Hawke seems to accept this, or at least he does not argue further, only reminds Sebastian to join him in the morning and lets him go.

It is enough. Sebastian has done what he can. They will find out if he has been wise or foolish, but for now all he can do is pray for the Maker's guidance, and the shelter of Andraste's mercy.

* * *

It's late when they come in, the house dark and seemingly deserted. But-- "Anders," Hawke calls, his voice echoing across the hall. "Will you come in here?"

They go, though they know their body is at its limits and will begin to fail them if they do not rest it. "What is it?"

Hawke is hunched in an armchair in his study, the fire gone low in the grate, his feet up on the table in a way his mother would never have tolerated. He has a glass cradled in his lap, blue liquid that sings sweetly into the shadows. Already he is filled with it, lyrium throbbing in his blood with every heartbeat.

He's despondent. No, depressed perhaps, such an ache in his eyes when he looks up. "Will you shut the door?" Easily done, and when it is Hawke beckons. "Pull up a chair. I want to talk to you."

"About what?"

Hawke regards them, a long, slow examination. "I have to go to the Gallows in the morning. They've thrown Carver in a cell. There was a demon in him, and Merrill pulled it out but they imprisoned him all the same." He wipes a hand over his face, his features twisting. "You know I can't let them keep him. I might," he sighs, "have to take the Viscount's seat to free him."

It's an old idea, but Hawke sounds this time as though he means it. "You could do much good, from that height."

"Oh, so much bloody good. I don't _want_ to." He pouts, and it isn't clear if it is a real pout or only for show. "It's almost as if _Meredith_ wants this, the way she keeps pushing me for it."

"Is it wise to give her what she wants?"

"She probably doesn't want what'll happen if she tries to stop me." Hawke tilts his chin up, his eyes dark and unreadable. "I know what you've been up to, you know. Sela petrae and drakestone -- I'm not a complete fool, Anders." And then he swallows. "Or, Justice. It's you, now, isn't it?"

There's only one answer to that. "It has always been both of us."

"But now ... Is there anything left of Anders?"

"We are one and the same."

Hawke shakes his head. "That's not true, Justice. I _know_ you. Maker, I told myself you wouldn't lie to me, and I believed you but ... you really believe it's true, don't you?"

They say nothing, because there is nothing to say. It _is_ true. It must be true, or--

"Anders said it was his anger that made you Vengeance." Hawke reaches out to brush his fingers down their cheek, and there is something desperate in him now. "I don't know about that. I _do_ know that you can't go on like this. I'll lose you both," and his touch goes hard, fingers closing on their collar. "You have to let him go, Justice. Come to _me_." Pleading, now. "Be with me, and never leave me."

He is so unhappy, and Anders -- no, both of them, they do love him. "You say you know what I've been doing. Do you know why?"

Hawke nods, his thumb tracing the soft skin at their throat. "You want to see the world burn. It doesn't have to go that way. We can do this _together_."

He sounds sincere, as though he truly believes there is a way out that will not end with Kirkwall in ashes. And, of course, he already died once (Justice knows it, even if Anders refuses to accept it) to stop that from happening.

It's unfair. He deserves more than this parasite of a city dragging him down, more than the brother who defies him so petulantly but still comes crying when he needs something, and the friends who do not stand with him when they owe him so much.

"If you are wrong, I _will_ burn it all down."

Hawke's face breaks into a smile, and he's lovely, filled to the brim with lyrium as he is. "Fair enough. We'll go get my brother first, I'll claim that _bloody_ seat if I have to, and then ..." His smile turns sly. "I can't _wait_ to have you inside me."

Ah. This. It's difficult to be disapproving when he's so obviously pleased with himself. "Shall I take you to bed, then?"

" _Oh_ yes. Lend me a shoulder, though," he says, dragging himself up out of his chair, his long limbs a mess. "I'm a bit squiffy."

He's drunk, twice over, but they do not say as much out loud, merely assist him up the stairs and into his room, and then out of his clothes.

Hawke sprawls gracelessly on the covers, leaking magic like a cracked bucket, and it wreathes around him, bright and beautiful. "Can I have Justice, tonight?"

"I have told you," they say, again, as if this time it will stick, but Hawke shakes his head.

"No, I mean _conspicuously_." His mouth ticks into a smile. "All lit up like a New Year's bonfire."

It's such a small thing to give him. They shift; Justice breaches the surface, the cool heat of spirit fire running the length of them. _Him._ Justice, now, and he wonders if he feels Anders shrivel up a little more.

Hawke makes a satisfied sound, raising a hand to beckon him down.

Justice goes to him. Tonight they can have this, and tomorrow? There will be an end to it, one way or another.


	42. Chapter 42

Once Sebastian's gone, Carver just curls up into a ball, empty. What a waste of time. Except all he has is time, now, time and nothing else.

All right. All _right_. Sebastian won't do anything, probably, and Garrett won't know, so Carver's going to have to get himself out. Somehow. He needs to ... Maker, he has no idea. 

The irony, he thinks, is that if anyone could help him now it would have been the demon.

It called itself Longing. What does that mean? What does it say about _him_ that his demon was something so pathetically sad? At least pride or rage might have--

 _Rage would leave you hollow,_ Longing said. _Imagine your pride, burning you to ash. With me, at least, you’ll retain part of yourself._

And now he has remembered it he can't forget the way Longing had listened to him, soothed him, comforted him in his hurts. How convincingly it had pretended to care.

Worse, he can practically hear it now, could close his eyes and imagine it looming in the shadows of his cell. It would curl long-taloned fingers around his shoulders and lean down to murmur close in his ear. It would tell him--

He jerks away from the thought, hard enough that he bashes his elbow against the wall, and the pain of it is a welcome jolt of clarity.

Did he nearly do it again? Could he have reached out, opened himself up to _another_ one? And would he even know if he had?

"Maker protect me," he breathes, but he needs more than that. "Maker, though the darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the Light, I shall weather the storm, I shall _endure_..." 

Across the way, Patria is watching him. She must think he's mad.

"What?"

She shakes her head. "Demons, then?"

Of course she knows. Why else would he be down here? "Mind your own business."

"It's my business if you burst down the wall in a fit of abomination and slaughter your way out," she says, low and hard. "Keep a lid on it. Now's not the time and, anyway, you'll only get us all killed."

Carver feels the rage overtake him instantly. "You think I _want_ to be a sodding abomination?"

"I think you're getting desperate and you're running out of options." Her eyes are like augers, drilling into him. "I don't know _how_ a Templar got mixed up with demons, but I know that look. Seen it in the mirror enough times."

Because she's a mage, and his rage is turned to shame because of course she'd know. Shit, she'd know as well as anyone. "And you're not desperate?"

She snorts, hunching down into her straw. "Now's not the time. Wait until they have your head on the block, and take as many of them down with you as you can. Or, I suppose it'll be a noose for you, Ser Knight."

That's ... bleak. Carver takes a deep breath. "I won't do that." He couldn't, even if he wanted to. He _won't_. "That your plan, then?"

"If it _was_ I wouldn't be telling you. No, I'm going to take the brand, when they force it." Her smile is sharp and cold. "Better Tranquil than dead."

He has no idea if that's true, but still it's so ... "Do you really mean that?"

She shrugs. "How can anyone ever know until it's too late?"

He lets the puzzle of that distract him for a while, turning it over and over. It's better than thinking about how he's going to die down here, or at the very least be driven mad by withdrawal. (Are those shadows darker? That stone looks like a face, with great big teeth, and he makes himself touch it to prove it's nothing, and then feels foolish because of _course_ it's nothing.)

He needs to get out. He needs to be nicer to Moira, when she comes back. If she does. Maker, he's got nothing she wants. Who, then? Someone who wants something from him. Maker's truth, if Ser Alrik were still alive ... he shudders at the thought of it, but throwing in with Alrik might have been better than dying, and might have been as bad as letting a demon ride him out of here. Not that he has the choice, anymore.

He thinks of the knights he knows, and wonders which of them might be corrupt enough to take the little he has to offer. It makes him feel sick, not because of what he might have to do for it but because _none of them_ should be corruptible, and yet the difficulty isn't in thinking who would do it but who might want what he's got. 

Noise at the other end of the corridor means it's mealtime, and Carver's due another paltry lyrium dose, so he makes himself get up and lean against the wall near the bars, trying not to look as eager as he is.

The tranquil offers him the tray and Carver takes it, and it isn't until the man says, "Ser Carver," that Carver actually looks up.

For a moment Carver thinks, _This is a trick, this is my way out, fuck_ yes _, Selwyn,_ but ... that brand is fresh, the skin blistered and sore. It's not painted on, like he thought. It has to be real. Oh, his _eyes_ , flat as a gravestone.

It's shock that makes him fumble the tray, and then -- with the inevitability of a shipwreck -- the bowl goes sailing over the edge, the phial rolling after, and he's too slow, too shaky to catch either. The bowl upends its contents onto the floor, but it's tin, all it gets are a few dents. The phial shatters. Carver feels it like a punch in the gut, but all he can do is stare at Selwyn's blank face.

"When did they do this to you?" He doesn't recognise his own voice, it's too small and distant to be his.

Selwyn's is worse, flat, so _flat_. "Last night."

"Why? You're not dangerous, Selwyn, I don't understand." It can't be real. He tells himself it can't, but every moment that passes it becomes more so. Selwyn stands like one of them, looks like one of them, sounds like one of them. There's a bruise on his cheek, another on his neck, a closed-over cut at his hairline where someone has dabbed a healing salve but not dared to use magic. He fought them, then. Carver can't feel anything about that, except deadened by the horror of it.

"I was accused of blood magic. All of us that you favour were interrogated."

Interrogated? All of them ... no, _Keili_. "But you're not a blood mage." _I'd have known, wouldn't I?_

"No. The Knight Commander could not force a confession or confrontation from any of us. But her investigation revealed my involvement in the mage underground, and when I would not reveal my contacts I was made Tranquil and forced to confess."

It makes no sense. "What do you mean? How were you involved?"

"When I received lessons from Anders, he would have me pass information. I assisted in dozens of escapes." Selwyn blinks, and it's awful because it means nothing except that his eyes are dry.

No, this can't be happening. "Then it's my fault. I _took_ you there, and--"

"You didn't force me to help him. That was my choice. I would choose it again, if I had the chance."

"How can you _say that?_ " Carver flings the tray aside and grips the bars with both hands, wishing he could tear them out of their brackets. "She made you Tranquil for it!"

"At the time I believed it was worth the risk. I still believe that." Selwyn tilts his head, looking down at the mess on the floor. "If you will give me the tray and the bowl I will clean this up, but I cannot bring you more food or lyrium." He doesn't sound sorry, it's just a fact. This more than anything convinces Carver that all this is real.

He kneels down, avoiding the glass. The lyrium beads on the surface of the flagstones. He could ... if he put his fingers in it he could ... but it's the _floor_ , filthy with muck, and there's shards all through, and Maker _fuck_ , he's not that far gone. Not yet.

Selwyn takes the tray and bowl away, and comes back with a cup of water and a brush-and-shovel. He gives Carver the water and puts a hand through the bars to scoop up as much mess as he can reach. Carver puts his own through to rest a palm on Selwyn's shoulder. Selwyn does not look up, but he doesn't flinch away.

"I'm sorry," Carver tells him, and it's not enough. "I'm so fucking sorry. I should have been looking after you. Like you always wanted. Maker, I've never done you any good."

"You couldn't have done anything." It's so emotionless. Carver can almost ignore how useless it makes him sound.

"I could have tried."

"Rochard tried. It did no good."

It takes a heartbeat for Carver to process what that means. "He's been protecting you."

"Yes."

"And he made you ... do things for him."

"I did things." Selwyn doesn't look up, his attention on the broken glass. "He never made me."

"Selwyn--"

"You never believed I had the ability to make decisions for myself," Selwyn says so smoothly it is almost as though he had not interrupted. "And now you think I am completely helpless."

It's true, Carver can't deny it, but it seems irrelevant.

Selwyn stands up, and the blunt strike of those flat eyes takes Carver's breath from him. "I believe they sent me to you to punish you further, hoping you would be injured by guilt. I do not want you to give them the satisfaction."

Carver doesn't have the strength to get off the floor, just stares up at him, dark against the torchlight. "Selwyn, it's _my fault_."

"Do not reduce my choices by taking responsibility for them. You were my friend, and I cared for you, even when you rejected me. I would care for you now, if I could."

But he can't, and it's left to Carver to care enough for both of them.

"Be strong, Ser Carver. I will do what I can for you."

He takes the slops bucket when he goes, comes back later with a cleaner blanket and what looks like part of his own dinner, but no lyrium. Patria watches all this with silent judgement, but when he stops by her cell to ask if she needs anything all she does is sigh and say, "I'll see you soon."

Carver doesn't think about what that means. Carver spends a lot of time trying not to think about anything.

* * *

When they come for Patria she doesn't fight. She doesn't yell or scream or drag her heels. It's Carver at the bars hollering at them to leave her alone, because he _knows_ where they're taking her. One of them cracks him in the mouth with the knuckles of her gauntlet and he reels back, dizzy with the strike, but pulls himself up again to slur, "You're not doing the Maker's work, you fucks! She's _harrowed!_ Leave her _be!_ "

"Shut your filthy mouth, _traitor _," the knight snarls at him, and he can't remember her name but he'll remember her Maker-damned _face___ , and when he gets out of here--

He's not getting out of here. They wouldn't be doing this if he could.

Patria lets them clap her in irons, her spine straight as a sword, and glances back only once. She looks like Andraste going to the stake, and Carver can't _take_ it, can't watch this, but he has to. He owes her, if only because she kept him sane when he thought he'd break. 

They take her away and he sinks to his knees, head resting against the cold steel bars, and he _wishes_.

He's out of options. Out of fucks to give, honestly. No-one's coming and he can do nothing in here. A demon might be his only chance, but what chance is that?

_Fenris would despise me, if I did that._

Fenris, who trusted him enough to help him when there was a _demon_ in him. Fenris who _apologised_ , who _changed_ , and became a better man than Carver could ever have deserved, while they were apart.

Maker, he can't face Fenris now, not if he lets the temptation of a demon sit in his throat.

He doesn't see Patria again.

* * *

Merrill feels the tug of the bond in the early hours of the morning, and goes down into the hall to find Hawke and Anders rummaging through the chest of supplies Hawke keeps there.

"Take this," Hawke says, handing Anders a bandolier with pockets for potions. Anders, however, turns to look at _her_ and Hawke follows the line of his gaze. "Oh! Good, you're up." He grins, bouncing something in his hand. "I've got a present for you."

Merrill looks from one of them to the other, and feels her mouth turn down. "What are you doing?"

"Getting ready to assail the Gallows." Hawke shoves himself to his feet, crossing the floor to press his gift into her hand. "You'll need these, if you're coming. Or if even you're not."

Merrill looks down at the buckles lying on her palm. They're carved from horn, Halla horn if she sees them right, and they're enchanted, the warmth of them unnatural and protective. "Why are we assailing the Gallows?"

"Because Meredith arrested my brother, and I think we oughtn't to let her keep him."

He says it so lightly it takes her a moment to understand. "But Carver's a Templar. Templars can't arrest Templars, can they?"

"Can a guardsman arrest a guardsman, if she catches him breaking the law?" Hawke sounds droll, but Merrill knows him well enough to see the tension in him, even as he tries to hide it with levity. "Anyway, apparently Templars don't like finding out one of their own has had a demon living in their head, and Carver's apparently no better now at keeping secrets than he was when he was five."

Merrill starts, because ... "They didn't! Oh, but we took it _out_ , how could they be angry about that?"

"I don't know." Hawke spins his staff in his hands, clearly excited. "Shall we go find out?"

Merrill fits the buckles to her vestments, sneeking peeks at Anders as she does. He seems ... well, he seems awful, but he's calm now -- too calm, really. She tries to catch his eye. "Are you all right?"

His head swings toward her, and his eyes are the wrong colour for this conversation. "Don't pretend you care."

That sort of thing doesn't hurt her anymore, not much anyway, so she tries again. "Maybe you should stay here. Where it's safe."

Anders looks scornful, but it's not Anders, it's Justice, and she reminds herself of that as he turns away, ignoring her completely.

She hasn't had a chance yet to find him alone; he seems to be avoiding her, though how he knows she's been looking for him she isn't sure. She also isn't sure what she'll do when she does get him to herself, but she has to do _something_.

It must show in her face, because Hawke pulls her aside while Anders is filling his bandolier. "Before you blow up, I wanted to say that I'm with you." 

She looks up into his face, and is struck by how _Hawke_ he is, how genuine, the man she fell in love with again, now when she had feared she'd lost him. But-- "What do you mean?"

"When we're done in the Gallows, I'll do it." He glances sidelong, eyes flickering to Anders and back to _her_ , and he smiles, but it's not a real smile. "The thing you want, for Anders."

He means to separate them. "Oh. Oh! _Hawke_ ," and she does not have words enough for this, that he has finally heard what she's been trying to tell him, that he agrees with her. She catches his arm and squeezes it. "Tha-ankyou! It's for the best, I swear!"

"I know." He shoulders his staff, and rubs his hands together. "Everything's going to work out, just the way we both wanted. All we have to do is get through today, and then we can do it."

Another day. One more delay, but this time he's _promised_ , and she's so glad. "All right. When it's over."

It buoys her up, so far that she feels like she's walking an inch above the ground, excited to be finally _doing_ something about it all, even though they first have to go to the awful Gallows and ... how are they going to get Carver _out_? Surely Knight Commander Meredith won't let them take him easily. But Hawke is wreathed in confidence, and she lets that sustain her.

They go first to the Chantry, for Sebastian, and then to the Hanged Man, for Varric and Isabela. Isabela is grouchy, scowling at them all and flipping her hair over her shoulder with a deep sigh.

"Why does this have to be a _morning_ adventure, hmm? I could do with more afternoon adventures, honestly."

"Best to get it over with," Hawke tells her, turning to Sebastian who is looking around as though he's lost his bow. "What's wrong?"

"Are we not waiting for Fenris?"

"Hah! No, he's been banned from the Gallows for _years_ now. I've tried to get him in, but it never works." Hawke grins at them all, and it's a little thin but Merrill believes in him, all the same. "All right. Everyone ready? Let's go."

It feels like the old times, all of them together and no-one fighting. Isabela slips an arm through Sebastian's, leaning in to whisper something in his ear that makes him redden, but he chuckles and whispers something back, and it's all _lovely_. Merrill watches Anders when she thinks he isn't looking. He doesn't look well at all, but she's tried once today and isn't going to try again if Justice is going to keep on rejecting her. 

Still, she can't help watching him, and she thinks it's gone unnoticed right up until Varric says, "Something wrong with Blondie, Daisy?"

She hadn't seen him there, and she startles. "Oh! No, no nothing. Nothing _new_ , anyway," and it's true so she doesn't understand why his brow furrows like that.

"If he's treating you badly, you can tell me."

She could, but he hasn't, doesn't, mostly just ignores her outside the Fade. "I'm fine. Don't _worry_."

"I can't help worrying about you," Varric says, and Merrill would be annoyed about it -- she's not _helpless_ , why do they always forget that until it's inconvenient? -- but they're at the docks, now, and Hawke has bought them passage on the barge and the Gallows is only over _there_ , so she does her best to focus on whatever is about to happen.

Varric gives up on her, eventually. "So, what's the plan, Hawke?"

"I thought I'd try being charming," Hawke says, leaning up on the railing. The wind catches in his hair, tossing it about his face. "And if that doesn't work, intimidating."

"And if _that_ doesn't work?" Varric is smooth, but not so smooth that Merrill misses the way his hands fist up, the way he tries to hide it by tucking his thumbs into his belt.

"Oh, then I suppose I'll try being incredibly violent," Hawke says, and that's a terrible idea, but the way he laughs makes Merrill think he doesn't mean it. "Or maybe I'll just get you to tell an amazing lie for me, Varric. Would you like that?"

"I don't know if I've got any really amazing lies for you today," Varric says, frowning, but then he shrugs. "I'll come up with something."

"That's my favorite dwarf." Hawke slaps him on the arm, grinning as though it's the best thing he's ever heard. "I knew I could count on you if things went south."

"All the way to Ferelden," Varric sighs, and Hawke laughs, and Merrill thinks it's so _strange_ that Hawke doesn't seem to know when Varric's annoyed with him.

It's not important. They're going to get Carver, and she's so _glad_. He should be with _them_ , not holed up in his terrible Gallows. He should come home. It's what his mother wanted, though Merrill thinks he's been happier since he got out from under her constricting kindness. Was, at least, when he was nesting with Fenris. And she thinks he has been since, though now it's hard to tell what was himself and what was the demon working through him.

He'll be better when they take him home. Back to the estate, and then they'll put Justice aside from Anders, and Hawke will be happy too, and all of them can _clan_ together. Isabela and Varric, maybe. Fenris hopefully. Sebastian if he must. But a _clan_ , and she misses the closeness of it, hoping for a clan she's made herself.

They dock, and go up, and she falls in close on Hawke's left-hand side, hugging up to him because it's very scary, really, going into the Gallows and knowing that there are Templars all around who want only to break her down into bits.

She's done this before; she can do it again.

So she follows Hawke across the courtyard, stays by his side when he says, "I'm here to see Orsino. I have an _appointment_ ," and when he cocks his head and tilts toward whatever he hears she follows him, up the steps, though the Templars call for them to stop.

At the head of the stair Orsino and Meredith are _yelling_ at each other.

"I have every right!" Meredith shouts, slicing the air with her hands. "You are harbouring blood mages, and I intend to root them out before they infect this city!"

"Blood magic!" Orsino is at the end of his rope, it's obvious. His magic furls around him like a cloak, ready to flare at the first breath of intention, and the fact that he has kept it close so long is proof of his strength of will. Merrill envies him, but does not envy how he learned this. "Where do you not see blood magic? My people cannot _sneeze_ without you accusing them of corruption."

Meredith is a block of ice. "Do not trifle with me, mage. My patience is at an end."

"A wonder that I never saw it begin!"

And into that Hawke strides, and he's so wry that Merrill thinks, _No, this is serious, you can't just--_

"The way you two carry on." He sighs. "People will talk." 

"This does not involve you," Meredith says, turning on him, but Hawke just waves her off.

"Good. I'm here for something else, anyway." He beams into her face, so bright that Merrill almost believes-- "I hear you have my brother under lock and key. Fereldan lad, about my height?" He gestures with one hand, at the level of his head. "A bit of a nuisance, probably. Let me take him off your hands and I'll be going. Out of your hair," he adds, grinning wildly.

If this is his charm Merrill thinks they're probably doomed.

"Your brother has been _infested_ by demons," Meredith says, her voice rough with ... she sounds sincere, and Merrill does not know what to think. "I have put him under quarantine for the good of us all."

"And I expect that's expensive." Hawke gestures broadly, bringing his fingers up to his mouth in a way that he means to look thoughtful. "I could quarantine him in the estate at no cost to you."

"This is not about the cost!"

"Then I'm not sure what it _is_ about." Hawke props his hands on his hips, frowning dramatically. "He's demon-free, and I'm willing to take charge of him. Surely that frees you up to take care of," and he eyes Orsino conspicuously, "more important matters."

Orsino billows like a sail in the wind. "The Knight Commander, _in her wisdom_ ," he begins but he is cut short by Meredith's disgusted snort.

"Everything I do is done for the wellbeing of the Gallows, Kirkwall, and the Free Marches. My wisdom tells me that this is _necessary_. And here you are, Champion, to witness it." 

She is stiff, brittle, and how wrong she is, now that Merrill has a chance to look at her. She's worn down to the bone, eaten down to it by, oh, Merrill would have said it was lyrium but Meredith is a Templar, and well used to lyrium. It can't be that. What can it be?

"Your own _brother_ has been corrupted here." Meredith gestures widely, her armour clanging like muffled bells. "I must purge this place of any evil that festers within it."

"And yet you choose to seek _blood magic_ ," Orsino growls, his magic clutching him with dark fingers, "instead of examining the _Templars_ where this sickness must have originated. For Andraste's _sake_ , woman, your _knights_ are the problem, not my people!"

"If _your people_ have nothing to hide, then--"

Hawke blows out his breath, fists propped on his fists, and flexes his magic impatiently. "Do I have to explain to you where you're both right, and where you're horribly misguided? Maker help us all, if this is how two of the most influential people in Kirkwall behave in the face of _disagreement_." 

Meredith bristles like an angry cat, and Orsino is sullenly furious, but Hawke seems not to notice either, pinching his nose as if this is all just a spat between lovers.

"First Enchanter. Will you not admit that there is cause for concern when so many unhappy mages are pushed so close to their limits?" He gives Orsino a pointed look, and Orsino nods, just a little, settling warily on his heels."And you, Knight Commander. Can you not see that mages _will_ react, when they're too closely constricted? People don't like being fenced in, not when they don't believe in the reason for it, or even if they do."

For a moment Merrill thinks he may have done it, made a difference where no-one else could, brought the tension down from a boil to a simmer, but then Meredith shakes her head angrily, one hand cutting the air as hard and sharp as a knife. "Be that as it may, I _will_ search the Gallows, top to bottom. Evil must be rooted out. I _will_ root it out, it is my _duty_!"

"Your duty is to protect mages, not demean them," Hawke says sharply, and this, Merrill thinks, is the moment where everything goes wrong.

Meredith steps in, her teeth a savage warning, and there is something so wrong with her but Merrill can't quite... "I have authority here, and you have none. This is not your business, Champion."

"Then maybe I should make it my business." Hawke leans in unto her, and his magic has gathered around him like a cloud, deep and dark, and the Knight Commander must be able to sense it, Templar as she is. "Or, will you give me my brother, as I have asked, so I might go away and leave you to _your_ business?"

"Are you threatening me, Hawke?" Such power in her, barely restrained. Merrill quivers to feel the weight of it pressing against her.

But Hawke just smiles one of his sharp smiles, that mean nobody any good. "Only if I don't get what I want."

For a long moment, Meredith just stares at him. And then, shockingly, she straightens. "Very well. If that is what it takes to be rid of you." She turns, striding away -- her knights scatter at her approach, leaving her a wide berth, and they seem so afraid. That cannot be good. What a terrible place, the Gallows, and how awful that they've left Carver in it for so long.

Orsino lets out a breath. "She won't heed you," he says, and his hands clench with the things he wants to do, magic tightening in his fingers. "If you won't stand with us--"

"I'm not against you, Orsino." Hawke folds his arms, frowning to himself. "We could be allies. Depending."

"On what?"

Hawke smiles, and this one is narrow and contemplative, his scheming face. "On what you're offering," he says, and Merrill worries, but she doesn't do anything.

* * *

This time when the footsteps come Carver ignores them. It's not time for food, and if it was Selwyn he'd get up, but it can't be, not with that rattle of armored boots. He stays on the floor, because he knows he should play their game, do something to get himself out of here, but he's empty, done with it. Maybe he _should_ rot down here. Maybe...

"Ser Carver," she says, and he looks up into the Knight Commander's face, and _fuck_ it's _her_. "On your _feet_ , Lieutenant."

Habit kicks in. He scrambles up, is halfway to a salute before he realises it, and then he pulls it because _fuck_ her, she made Selwyn _Tranquil_ , she can rot in a ditch for all he cares. But he tucks his hands behind his back and stands straight all the same. He can't help it. She's still his Commander.

She unlocks the door and comes in, not bothering to pull the gate shut behind her. Of course not. She has nothing to fear from him.

Except. He can feel her strength, and it is not so ... maybe...

But it doesn't matter.

"Ser Carver." She regards him as though he is nothing, a beetle beneath her boot, and her mouth twists as she turns her head. "Do you believe I should let you go free?"

What does she _mean_? "Knight Commander?" he tries, but she looks so sour, her mouth gone to nothing in the hard planes of her face.

"Do not play to me, Hawke," she says, and she is, after all, his Commander but still, how he hates her.

"I think you're wrong to lock me up," he says, and maybe he's wrong to say it, but he can't help himself. "I think I could do better in your Gallows than most of your knights. If you'd let me." And, because he's honest, he says, "I'd follow you to the Black City, if I thought you right in your reasons to go there."

"But you would follow Cullen there, even if you thought him wrong." She says, with far more insight than he'd like, but ... she's right and she's his _Commander_.

So he says, "You know it, Ser." 

She nods, and she looks for a moment sad, but then her mouth wrenches up. "Regardless. I have need of you, my knight."

Oh, how it burns to hear those words from her now. What he says is, "Ser," but what he means is a deep, _Go fuck yourself,_ and it's probably audible to her, anyway.

"Your brother has come here seeking your release. If I let you go into his custody then you will no longer be a Templar."

Ah! That hurts him badly -- his commission gone, his _life_ gone, nothing left but whatever Garrett will let him have. He would be nothing then, a pile of uselessness, waiting on Garrett to tell him to do whatever Garrett wanted him to do.

"I know you have reason to resent him."

True, but she can't know how. Carver squares his shoulders, watching her face, which is flat as a board. She gives away nothing, and he wishes he could do that, do the thing same himself, but he can't. "Knight Commander," he says, knowing it for nothing.

She shifts -- irritable, he thinks. "You can get close to the Champion. You could take that opportunity to put a blade in him. Somewhere that sticks."

Oh. No. She's asking him to _murder his brother_. That's what she's asking, isn't she? He can't ... he can't even speak, he's too shocked for words. How could she think--

"If you should do so, I would allow you to keep your commission." 

She says, as if it's enough to convince him, and he can't help but be indignant over the fact that she could believe him so easily bought. He _wants_ it, of course, but it's not prize enough to make him ... Mercy, how little she must think of him to offer this in the belief that he would accept it. No. No, he could never. _No._ "Ser, I can't--"

"I'll let you keep Cullen, too." And now she looks on him, her eyes dark as blueberries, her mouth thin with disgust. "I will not part you from one another, should you do this thing for me."

She knows. Maker, has she always known? 

And then she goes on, and it tears at him. "I am not a fool, Hawke. I have seen with my own eyes enough to know that losing Cullen would wound you. And him," and she sounds so disgusted, "to lose _you_. So, I will give you my word that I will not separate you," and again her disgust, "in any way. If you will do as I command, and put a knife in your brother's heart."

He can't even entertain the idea, cannot give it root in his mind. He _won't_ do what she demands of him. There's no way. He could never. Not just because she _told_ him to.

And she has known about Cullen, clearly knows it, is ready to use it. But maybe she doesn't know how Cullen has thrown him aside, maybe does not know that Cullen is _done_ with him, and maybe he can still use that, somehow. If Carver tells her 'no' then he does not know what will happen. Maybe she'll keep him here forever, maybe she'll starve him, run him dry of lyrium, maybe she'll torture him into dust, but still. He will _never_ do what she demands of him, but ... but maybe he can do something, all the same.

He shakes himself, looks up into her eye, and nods. "All right. I'll do it. But I want some things."

She looks so _disgusted_ with him. Rightfully so. "Name your price, Hawke."

"I want to know that you won't hurt Cullen for whatever I do," he says, and he means it, though he knows that Cullen has forsaken him, and also that whatever she agrees won't hold past what he means to do. "And I want you to stop making people Tranquil because of me." That won't hold either, but it makes a good camouflage because he _means_ it, so hard. It's what he'd have argued, if this were a real negotiation and not a sham of one.

She nods, and it's so _nothing_ that he's certain she means him to die today, has no reason to honour any agreement they make. "Agreed."

He draws a deep breath, wondering if he should push it. Not that it matters. It'll all be over soon. "All right, Commander. I'll do as you say."

"Good," she says, and there's something, but ... 

She steps back through the door, stands aside to let him out, and he hesitates because ... but he goes, free now, fuck he's _out of that cell_ and the relief is staggering. 

He looks up at her, and he'll take her out if he has to, once he's done what he must. (And Cullen? No, he can't. He just can't. No matter what, he will never.)

"Knight Commander," he says, and he follows her down the corridor past the mages imprisoned there, and up the steps, and he thinks, _We're done, now. Any moment now, we'll be done._

There's only ever been one way out of this, and if he's honest with himself he has to admit that he's always known how it would go, at the end. He's his father's son, when everything's said -- his mother's, when everything's done. 

He knows what he has to do.


	43. Chapter 43

Meredith lets him have his boots but has him shackled. "For the look of the thing," she says, but Carver feels it as yet another humiliation. He asks for his armour -- for the look of the thing -- but she curls her lip at it and he doesn't get any, anyway.

Margitte is waiting for them on the steps, still as palely beautiful as Carver has remembered her, but the years have made her harder, colder, and the dragonbone he had always thought she must have at her core is now exposed to the light.

"Ser Margitte," he says, but she turns her face away, as if she cannot bear to look at him. How it _rankles_ and he can't help himself. "Fuck's sake, Margie, we used to be _friends_."

The look on her face makes it clear what she thinks of that. "My friendship was for Ser Paxley, not _you_."

She can't mean to throw Pax in his face _now_ , surely? "I thought you didn't blame me for that," he protests, though he can't help agreeing with her, if she does.

"That was before I knew you riddled with demons," she says sharply, her mouth wrenching in disgust. 

Well. He has nothing for that. 

Meredith touches Margitte's shoulder. "My knight," she says, and Margitte nods, so sure of herself, sheltered in her belief in her Commander. Oh, that's not fair. That's what _Carver_ had, or thought he had -- mercy, Cullen's face when he sent Carver away, how betrayed he had been. How ruined everything is, now.

Margitte steps up, a belt knife in hand, and she buckles it to him without looking him in the eye. He knows what it's meant for. Maker, it makes him feel sick.

They go silently save for the rattle of plate, all the way up, and it's worse when they go out because _Garrett is there_ , bright and lively and all himself, laughing at something even as he turns to look at Carver, shackled and tamed, and immediately Garrett _stops_ laughing, his mouth turning down into a frown. 

"Oh. It's like this, is it?" He shakes himself, pulling away from the rest -- there's Isabela, there's Merrill, there's Varric and _Sebastian_ but _no_ Fenris, oh -- to front Carver, and he lifts a hand only to lower it to the shackles on Carver's wrists. "This has to come off."

Carver feels torn. He's so close to _getting out_ but also .... also he knows what Meredith expects, and he won't do it but he thinks that once she realises that then they'll have no chance of going free. So. "Garrett," he says, quiet so Garrett will draw in to him, but Garrett does not, stands up straight, head turning to call across the yard.

"Keys for this!"

" _Garrett_ ," Carver insists, because Garrett needs to know it's a trap, and Carver means to tell him so, to do whatever it takes to get Garrett _out_ , but Garrett _ignores him again_ , and _fuck_ , it's so _typical_ , he has to--

Cullen strides in like a storm, but he is a pale ghost of himself, deep bruises purpling his eyes, cheeks gone gaunt and grey. His eyes are raw, wild as they fix on Carver, and he looks like a man with one foot in the grave.

"You cannot do this, Knight Commander," he says, his voice shaking with it, hands up in a plea. "Ser Carver's crimes, such as they are, do not merit expulsion. It is _wrong_ to do this."

"Shall I have him executed instead?" 

Carver sees Cullen wince, and he thinks, _Oh!_ because that is not the look of a man who has _stopped loving him_. No, of course not, Cullen isn't so changeable or inconstant, and even if Carver has truly broken his heart Cullen will not hold it against him, even now. That is the man he is. Pity, then, that Carver has not been the man Cullen believed him to be.

_Cullen ... Maker, I'm so fucking sorry._

"No?" Meredith gestures sharply. "Then move aside, Knight Captain, before I have you confined for insubordination."

Carver sees Cullen waver, sees the agony in his face, and he wants only to tell him it will be all right, that everything will be fine, but ...

It won't. Not if things go to plan. Nothing will be all right again. But, maybe, it's already too late for that, no matter what they do.

"Allow Ser Carver his plate and mail," Cullen says, standing up to her at last and in the worst way. Too soon, not yet, _Cullen don't be a fool_ , except ... Cullen will _have_ to, if it has any chance of coming right. Cullen will step up. He has to. Carver believes in him, if he believes in nothing else, anymore.

"His armor is the property of the Gallows," Meredith snarls, "inappropriate for a man who is _no longer a Templar_."

No longer a Templar. Carver tastes it, swallows it, and hates it. 

Cullen makes such a _face_. "Is that so? Then ... his sword, at least, if we are to throw him to the wolves. Ser Maglene," and he gestures, sharp as a knife-cut. "Get the Knight Lieutenant's sword."

Carver hadn't noticed her at Cullen's elbow, but now she nods and bunks out, running hard for the officers quarters, not waiting long enough to give her assent or hear the order countermanded. _Maglene. You beautiful bitch._ Not that it'll matter. He doesn't need a sword for what he intends, just the knife, weighing heavy on his hip. It has to be enough.

"Take off these shackles," Cullen demands, and another knight -- Barker! Maker bless him -- steps in to put key to the cuffs, and when he looks up into Carver's face Carver sees him to be a _wreck_ of himself, neat in his person but otherwise just another grey-faced ruin, almost as bad as Cullen himself.

How Carver wants to speak with him, to find out how their knights are holding up, to yell at him for not protecting Selwyn the way he -- but he himself could never have protected Selwyn, and it would be cruel to blame Barker, who has never done anything wrong, for the horrors of serving under Meredith's command. It's not Barker's fault. It's Carver's, if it's anyone's, and that burns him deep, right down to his bones.

Barker holds his eye, pulling the shackles from his wrists. "Ser," he says, but there is so much behind it. Maker, Carver never deserved this, not Barker, not his competence nor his loyalty, none of it. 

He's grateful, all the same. "Ser Barker," he says as he rubs his wrists, and Barker grits his teeth, and Carver thinks, _No!_ because there is _rebellion_ in Barker's face, and not yet, not yet, any moment now perhaps but _not yet_. "Obey the Knight Captain," Carver says, and he hopes Barker will heed him this once.

Barker lifts his chin, but then he nods, a small slight thing, and it is enough to make Carver's heart beat again. Barker is _reliable_. Maker, he's _everything_ good. Carver has been remiss in overlooking him. Another mark against his tally of foolishness.

"That's better," Garrett says, smiling and reaching out. "Ready to go?"

His hand lands warm and heavy on Carver's shoulder, fingers still broad and strong, and it's an anchor, enough to give him strength for what he must do.

"Ha-awke," Merrill calls, her voice wavering, and Carver (lyrium deprived as he is) can feel the magic swell around her, a danger to them all. _No_. Not yet.

"Ser Carver," Meredith prompts, her voice gone steely cold, and Carver knows he's running out of time. "Remember your promise."

Garrett's hand tightens. "Oh? Carver," and he sounds annoyed more than anything, "what did you _do_?"

"Only what I had to," Carver says, and then, low down and quick, "It's a trap, Garrett, you need to get _out of here_."

His brother's eyes widen just a fraction. "Well, I know _that_ , idiot, but--"

"Ser _Carver!_ " Meredith steps forward, her face a mask of fury, and Carver reaches for the knife, draws it, and lunges for her throat in a single motion.

He's not a knifer. He knows his sword, knows his shield, but the dagger in his hand might as well be a butter knife for all his skill with it. So when he lunges he isn't sure enough, his feet not quick enough, and she has time to turn her shoulder into it the way they're all trained to do.

If Carver had known how to use a knife he might have anticipated this, might have twisted to bring the blade up under her arm to catch her between the plates of her armour. But as it is the point lands on her pauldron with all his force behind it, and then, to his horror, the blade shatters into a dozen useless pieces.

For a moment all he can do is stare -- how could it shatter? Was it forged wrong? Did he _do_ it wrong? -- but then it comes clear. This blade was never meant to kill Garrett. And if Carver had tried ... oh, if he _had_ , then the Maker only knows what Garrett would have done.

Meredith's mouth twists, and then she's slammed him off his feet with the weight of a smite, her gauntlet catching him full in the face for good measure. It's a grand smite and a good strike too, shakes him down to his bones, and he hits the ground hard, his skull cracking against the paving-stones. It knocks the sense and breath out of him, blood pooling in his mouth, and he despairs even as his head rings. _No, no, this isn't how it's supposed to go!_

Someone calls his name. It might be Cullen. It might not.

"See how deep his corruption goes!" That's Meredith, her voice ringing out across the courtyard. He tries to sit up but he's groggy, forced to roll and plant his palms to shove himself to his knees. There's a hand on him, and he almost shrugs it off but ... it's Garrett, yanking him up, and Carver tries to go with it but he's too heavy, too thick for this. He spits blood on the ground, tries to find his feet, but he can't, just hangs there, useless at the end of his brother's arm. "See how the Champion has corrupted him! One of our _own_ , ruined by the foulness of _blood magic_." Her voice pitches up, a sharp bite with a burr to it that Carver recognises, though he can't say why. "Hawke, I name you maleficar. Surrender yourself or your life and your companions' will be forfeit to the will of the Maker!"

This ... no. It's wrong. This isn't what he wanted. "Garrett," he slurs, " _run!_ "

He blinks up into Garrett's face, gone wild now, and sees it firm into a scowl. "You bloody _nuisance_ ," he growls. "I could have-- will you _get the fuck up?_ "

"Do you _hear_ me?" Meredith is on the edge of a scream, like something from a nightmare, and all Garrett does is sigh, ignoring her completely.

"Come _on_ , little brother," and there's something desperate in it that forces Carver up, driving him to his feet. "There you go, just-- a little help, someone!"

Another hand on his arm, a shoulder beneath his, and the whiff of salt and sweat gives her away. _Isabela_. Maker bless her, how he loves her.

"I have given you fair warning!" Meredith is so shrill, at the end of whatever tether she had left. "Surrender now or I will have all of you slain!"

"Up you go," Isabela coos in his ear. "There, look at you, standing all by yourself. Hawke, we need--"

"I know," Garrett mutters, and his arms are spread, shielding them both from the Knight Commander. He turns his head, glancing over his shoulder, "Varric, I--"

"Then _so be it_." Carver lifts his head to see Meredith raise her chin, and then, so slowly it is as though the world moves through honey, he sees Margitte nod, draw her sword, and thrust it to run Garrett through.

" _No!_ " That's him, that's his voice, and Garrett says nothing, only looks surprised, one hand coming up to touch the place in his chest where he's pierced. The blade twists, pulls free, sliding back out of him, and Margitte shakes it out, her face smooth as polished marble.

 _I taught her that thrust,_ Carver thinks, and it's nothing, nothing that matters now.

Garrett crumples. Someone screams. The world turns blue, the air sizzling with hot dangerous magic, and then ... Garrett pushes himself up.

It's okay. He's _okay_ , Maker's _Light_ , he's going to be _fine_.

Carver tears himself out of Isabela's hands, crashing painfully to his knees. " _Garrett_ ," and he has Garrett by the collar, hauling him up to look him in the face. "You..."

Garrett lifts his head. "Little brother," he says, but it's wrong, the sound of it all wrong, and even as he puts a palm to Carver's cheek Carver _knows_ it's wrong, but he can't pull away. "It's too late for you."

His eyes are blue. Carver knows this blue, and he jerks, tries to pull himself free, but Garrett has him now, clamped in a death-grip as his skin cracks open _blue_ with spirit fire.

"Too late for all of you. There can _be no compromise._ "

The magic surges, smashing over him like a wave, and the pain of it is worse than anything he's ever known.

He goes under, drowning in it forever.


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the Kirkwall Chantry explosion

"Uncle! Look!" Tully has found a weed in the cracks of pavement that make up Hightown, has crouched down to examine it. This particular weed has grown a flower against the paving stones beneath their feet, and the way Tully looks up tells him that Tully has decided that he loves it. "Uncle, we take it home?"

Orana has a collection of pots in which they plant the little things Tully finds, and Tully waters them all, takes such care over them that it makes Fenris feel thin and scant to see it. 

Still. "Do we not go to school today?" Fenris says, trying at firmness in the face of Tully's enthusiasm.

Tully kicks the ground with one bare foot, little face gone sullen. " _Yes_ , Uncle."

"We cannot take a plant to school, can we?"

"No-o." Tully turns his face up, and he looks so _sad_. "But, when we go home, we can?"

Of course. "Yes. When I come for you again to take you home we can pull it up, if you remember." Tully does not always remember in time, and sometimes he cries because of this, but Orana says it is good for him to learn disappointment, and the repercussions of his own forgetfulness. Though, if Fenris had it his own way he would always find the things Tully had forgotten and keep them in secret for him to remember. But Orana says no, so Fenris does as she tells him, and so far all has been well. 

"Don't want to go to school today," Tully says, hands reaching up to clutch at Fenris' belt, "Uncle, ple-ease?"

This, again. Fenris crouches down, kneels on the flagstones to look Tully in the face. "But you must learn," Fenris says, still unsure about it. "You must learn to read, at least. You are so very good at it. I am _very_ proud of you."

Tully makes a face, twists away, tries to _get_ away, and Fenris picks him up. 

"Shh," he says, carrying Tully toward the Chantry. "Do you not want to learn?"

"Ye-es," Tully trills, but he tucks his face into Fenris' neck. "Want to go with _you_ , Uncle."

The warmth in his chest is expected, now, and he hugs Tully up, so glad of him, and his sometimes inconvenient attachment. "I know. But you must go to school. Do you understand?"

Tully sighs, but he nods against Fenris' chin. "Understand." And then he perks up, "We get cakes first?"

It's typical, and Fenris opens his mouth to say no but perhaps on their way home, but his markings flare and the air closes tight around them and--

_Boom._

The light is blinding, the roar of it deafening, the earth _breaking_ beneath his feet, a shockwave of magic knocking him back. Instinct curls him around the warm bundle in his arms, and they tumble to the ground, skidding across the pavingstones in a wash of dust and debris. 

It _hurts_. Every vein of lyrium in his body throbs with magic, pain flaring all along his side, dizzying and terrible, but he forces himself to uncurl, heart in his mouth because _Tully_.

Amber eyes blink at him through the dust. "Uncle?" 

His _heart_. " _Tully._ "

He tries to sit up, tries to tip the weight of Tully into his lap, but Tully clings to him, hands gone to fists on his collar. 

"Are you hurt?" He cannot help his panic, hands going over Tully for injury -- Tully shakes his head, his face scrunching up around the tears welling in his eyes, but that is acceptable, that is _good_. Even if he cries Tully will be _fine_ , and Fenris can breathe again.

_Maker of us all, thank-you._

"Shh," Fenris says, smoothing a hand over Tully's hair. "It is all right. Up on your feet. Can you do that?"

Tully does, one hand still latched in Fenris' collar, and Fenris rolls onto his knees, lifting his head to see.

There is a great cloud gone up into the sky, a pillar of smoke and dust, and it takes him a handful of heartbeats to realise what he is seeing. The skyline is wrong, oddly empty, a hollow place there above the rooftops where the Chantry has always been. What does it mean? Magic in the air and _what does it mean_?

"Uncle?"

Fenris unlatches Tully's hands, getting to his feet. Every inch of his skin feels hot, scoured by magic, and he wants to go toward the blast, to see with his own eyes what he fears he will find if he rounds the corner into the plaza beneath the Chantry-that-was. But there is Tully, and already the streets are milling with people, some standing and staring and others rushing to and fro, humans in a panic and all of them dangerous, and Fenris knows what he has to do.

He lifts Tully up, ignoring his high-pitched protest, and turns to run.

* * *

Merrill sees him go down, and the scream that rips from her throat hurts her but it is not ... no, this can't be _real_.

The world goes blue. She turns to Anders, but before she can focus on him it is already too late, blue streaking from him down the bond-thread to burst into Garrett like fire and she ... she doesn't know, but this?

This is _madness_.

"Anders!" 

He doesn't hear her, crumpling into a puddle of cloth on the flagstones, and so she goes too, on her knees beside him, magic already spilling from her fingers to feel him out, the breath burning in her lungs until she finds it. There, a spark within him, hidden so deep she would not have found it without their own bond between them. He is alive. She breathes out, relief washing over her like cool water.

She has no time to revel in it. Magic swells the air. Hawke is pushing himself to his knees, but she can't see his face. His voice, though, is clear, and it burrs with dissonance, familiar and unfamiliar and wrong, and she knows.

"There can be no compromise," Justice says with Hawke's mouth, and the magic goes hot, tight, pulling in hard until it explodes.

Two things. One: light flaring blue under Hawke's hand where it grips Carver's cheek. Too late, she can do nothing to stop it. And two: in the distance a great lance of fire strikes up to pierce the sky, followed by a great heavy boom that shakes the ground beneath her knees. She clutches at Anders' robes, ducking down to hunch herself over him as if that might protect him. The magic gathered in her hands spins out into a barrier, big enough to cover them both, but it is too late, the worst of it already happened and irrevocable.

Behind her someone is shouting. An arrow zips through the air only to clip her barrier and twang harmlessly to the ground, and it is like the bursting of a dam because _then_ the Templars react.

It is chaos. The heavy weight of a Smite knocks the breath and magic out of her, followed by another and another, and she scrabbles for magic, just a little, just enough to protect herself and Anders and, oh, their _friends_ , oh _Hawke_ , oh _Carver_.

_I don't know what to do. Creators, help me, I can't--_

"Come on!" Isabela's grip is rough on her shoulder, tries to drag her up, but Merrill's hands have latched in the cloth of Anders' coat and will not let go, the weight of him too great. "Merrill, we have to go!"

"I won't leave him!"

"Hawke? Hawke's gone mad," Isabela insists, "we have to _go_!"

"I won't leave Anders!"

Isabela swears and bends to yank Anders onto his back, her fingers pressing up hard under his chin. She makes a face. "He's dead, Merrill. For the love of ... " Her expression twists, pleading now, and Merrill has never seen her like this; it frightens her because if Isabela is desperate then the world is coming to an end. "Please. Come with me, before it's too late."

It is already too late. The knowledge suffuses her and with it an eerie calm, like that found in the eye of a storm. If it is too late then there is nothing to lose. Nothing but the knowledge that she has done everything she can to protect the people she loves best in the world.

She has not, yet, but she can.

"You have to go," she says, loosing her grip and reaching for her beltknife. The blade is sharp, the cut across her palm barely stings her. "I'll make a distraction. Go on, lethallan."

Isabela's face ... but then it firms, and she nods. "All right. If that's what you want."

She turns on her heel, dodging a Templar that makes a grab for her, and Merrill catches a glimpse of Isabela's blade as it flickers up and in, and the Templar stumbles back, cursing.

Merrill shoves herself to her feet, blood dripping from her fingers, and reaches for more. The magic soaks into her, filling her up to bursting, and she shudders under the intensity of it.

The Knight Commander is screaming, something about the Rite of Annulment, and, "To me, Kirkwall!" 

And the Knight Captain, white as a sheet-- "No! Meredith, I pronounce you unfit for command of the Gallows! I will--"

"You will nothing!" Meredith draws her sword, turning on the Knight Captain, and her eyes glow red with something Merrill has never seen before. "I am Commander here and you will obey me or die!"

Merrill grips her staff, slippery in her bloody palm. _I am water, flowing through the cracks in stone. I am ice. I am._

She breathes in, and out, and on that out-breath she _pushes_ , sending up a hail of ice shards that rattle hard against all that Templar plate. Some of them go down. The rest -- their helmets jerk, turning on her, and she feels the rush of new Smites building in their blood. She doesn't give them a chance, pushing out, pooling water into the cracks between the flagstones beneath their feet and _breaking_ it, shuddering the stones to topple the Templars one after the other like dominoes.

Anders is so still, but she can feel him now along the bond. He is alive. He is her responsibility. She will not leave him behind.

And there is Hawke, standing on his own two legs, eyes blue with spirit fire and Carver slumped and blackened at his feet.

He smiles, teeth savage against his lip, and he says, with Justice's voice, "Well done. Let us put an end to it all."

* * *

The thing about Templar magic (which is what it _is_ , no matter what they claim) is that it works best on mages, but that doesn't mean it's not a bloody nuisance to everyone else. Plus, they throw it around like beans at New Year, so Isabela isn't exactly surprised when she catches a Smite full in the face that nearly throws her off her feet. Nearly -- she stumbles, rolls, and comes up under the knight's sword arm to thud the pommel of a knife into his shortribs, winding him long enough for her to sweep him off his feet. Or her. Isabela can't tell and doesn't care, her only goal now to get to the docks.

Though, if she's honest, she's looking for something else in the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of ruddy auburn hair or snow-white armour or just a bloody quiver, for fuck's sake.

As if on cue, a bolt slices between her and a stack of Templar plate, glancing off a helmet instead of punching through, more to stun than kill.

"Varric!" she yells, recognising the twang and thud of Bianca doing what she does best.

"Here!" 

He's up on the stairs leading into a guard tower, taking cover behind the balustrade. She hurls herself up the steps, rolling up against his side with a smoke bomb ready to lob. "Where's Sebastian?"

"Choirboy took off for the docks," Varric says, too mild and calm for the middle of a disaster of this magnitude. 

Isabela risks a glance across the courtyard. Meredith has drawn her sword on Cullen, but at least a third of the knights are clustering around him, blades up against their Commander. Orsino has his arms spread wide, his voice booming over the tumult, echoing with magic. "This is madness! Meredith, I won't let you--"

Isabela sees Meredith twist, sees the swing of her blade, sees Orsino's staff flick out with a clang like the striking of a gong -- the air ripples. Her teeth chatter and buzz, and for a heady moment she thinks she might be going to vomit. 

"You holding that or throwing it, Rivaini?"

She lobs her bomb into the melee, granting them a little more cover, and reaches for another. Three left, that's all right. Plenty to go around (though she worries, deep down, because...)

Down in the courtyard Orsino has blocked Meredith's blow, magic cloaking him in eerie shimmers. Then he raises his chin and there's a dull whumph, magic knocking the Templars back, their boots sliding in the dust. Hawke rises up behind him, wreathed in blue flame, and if she didn't know better she might have imagined him laughing.

This, Isabela thinks, is probably a good time to leave.

"Alright, sweet thing, let's get out of here."

But Varric just calmly fits another bolt to his lady. "Think I might stick around to see if Daisy needs any help."

Now _that's_ madness. Isabela hesitates long enough to wonder if she'll regret this. It's a lost cause, she knows that with a powerful certainty, can feel it in the bones of the arm that Tevinter mage broke and Sebastian set and Anders never healed for her. This game is _over_ , and it's time to cut her losses.

There's nothing for her here, anymore. Except Merrill. And Varric. And Sebastian, who's already gone, and she--

_He left. Don't even worry about him. He's certainly not worrying about you._

No. Just Varric left, of them all, and he doesn't need her _either_.

So she presses a kiss to his cheek, squeezes his shoulder, and says, "Cover me, and I'll owe you a drink."

His chuckle is as warm as she'll always remember him. "You've got a deal, Rivaini. Go on. Get out of here, and don't look back."

He keeps his word, and she keeps hers.

* * *

When the earth shakes her first thought is, _Magisters,_ and it paralyses her. She cannot breathe. _Danarius._ But Danarius is dead, Fenris swore it to her, his head lopped from his shoulders. He cannot come to claim his mansion and punish the slaves impudent enough to play at freedom beneath its roof.

Still. Orana makes herself let go of her spoon, and lays it down on a dish. Her hands try to curl up, like dry leaves, pale and fragile and useless. She forces her fingers straight, though her spine curves, shoulders bowing her down until she cannot raise her head for the weight of it. 

It need not be Danarius, but any Tevinter mage is frightening enough. She was the property of a magister's favoured apprentice, and her mistress' death did not change the fact that she is still property.

And Tully? If his father had been human ... 

Her mind goes horribly blank, shying away from what she knows would happen to Tully if a Magister comes for them.

_It will be well,_ she tells herself. Tully is with his uncle, and Fenris will never let them take either of them alive.

The soup is burning. The smell of it yanks her from her fugue, and hurriedly she drags the kettle from the hearth. The process of ladling what soup remains unspoiled into a fresh pot keeps her hands occupied, but in the back of her mind she cannot help the patter of, _Tully, Tully, Tully,_ that will not stop.

She pumps water into the bottom of the burnt pot. She will scour it with sand when it cools. Or she will not be here to concern herself with it. Tully is with Fenris. Tully will be safe. Fenris--

The back door bangs open and she drops the ladle on the floor, heart leaping up to choke her, but it is _Fenris_ , and he has _Tully_ hugged to his chest, and the relief makes her want to weep. She's crossed the room without thought, wrapping them both in her arms and holding on as tight as she can. Fenris makes a weak sound and pushes Tully against her until she takes his weight.

"The Chantry," he says, "it's gone," but it makes no sense. "Look after Tully, I will discover more."

And then he is gone again, and Tully is crying, so she shushes him and feeds him soup and kisses his hair. Fenris will come back. He must. And if he does not?

"You must be good for your mama today," she tells Tully, "I need you to be very good, do you understand?"

He seems to, though he clings to her when she tries to pull away.

"No, Tully. Your mama needs to do some things."

"We do chores?" he asks, heartbreakingly sweet.

"Yes," she tells him, to distract him. "Fetch all your clothes, all your toys."

There are not many, but Tully dutifully brings them all into the kitchen and lays them, reverently folded and piled on the floor. "Mama! Next?"

She is busily sorting through her own. Two dresses, two aprons, all her smallclothes, combs and her tiny hoard of cosmetics, the blanket made from scraps of things worn down to nothing and stitched carefully together. All of it in a bundle, and then she bundles up Tully's things too, making a parcel of them small enough for him to carry. 

His toys are few, at least. A spinning top, a wooden shark, a small crocheted ball filled with dried beans. He has brought too the little dagger given him by Captain Isabela, laid it down beside the others, and Orana stares at it for a long moment before bending down to him.

"Tully, listen to your mama." She shows him the dagger. "Remember what Captain Isabela told you."

"Daggers are for stabbing," he says, cocking his head. "No showing off. Just stabbing."

"And it is not a toy," she reminds him, fixing it to his belt. He fiddles with it for a bit, but then he smiles up at her. He looks so like his father, or how she remembers his father. She runs her fingers down his temple, tracing lines over the softness of his cheek. "Remember how Captain Isabela showed you."

"I will!"

Her _son_. She will do anything to--

She will do what she can.

By the time Fenris returns she has three bundles laid out against the wall, and parcels of food to be tucked into each. Fenris is dust-streaked and tense, and sinks down at the kitchen table as though aged by what he has seen.

"The Chantry has been destroyed."

Orana does not understand. She understands the words, but she cannot comprehend the meaning of them. "How is it so?"

"Magic." He does not sound surprised by this, only angered. How he hates magic. She understands this, at least -- Fenris is afraid of very little, but that which frightens him most is that which he hates most, and more than anything he hates magic.

The tight pressure in her chest makes it difficult to breathe. "A magister?" she whispers. To say the word cannot summon one, she knows this, but speaking it aloud seems dangerous.

Fenris flinches, eyes darting about the room as if checking shadows. "I do not ... no, I think not. A magister," he goes on, mouth wrought in disgust, "would have claimed responsibility, if only for the power he might gain from Kirkwall's terror of worse. It makes no sense. It must have been a Gallows mage, or an apostate."

He seems to see the bundles by the wall for the first time, frowning at them, and glancing up at her in query. She shrugs. "If we must leave, we must be ready."

His eyes track over her face, and in _his_ face she sees hopefulness. "We would go together."

"Yes." For a moment she fears-- "Unless you would leave us behind."

"No. I would not." He thinks, mouth turned down. "I must know if--" but he breaks off, shaking his head. "Venhedis, we were on the way to ... Tully was nearly ..." He stands up, shakes himself sharply, and will not meet her eye. "I must know if Sebastian is alive."

"Eat something." She offers him soup in a bowl. He swallows it without protest or enjoyment, handing it back with a nod.

"I will return." He stops, lifts his eyes to her, and promises. "I _will_. Be safe."

When he's gone she goes back to packing, though her fears are quieted for now. Fenris does not believe there is a Magister, therefore there cannot be a Magister.

_All will be well,_ she hopes, and plans for the worst, all the same.

* * *

Sebastian runs, legs burning on the stairs, but all he has is _this_ , the hard slog up the steps to Hightown, to the Chantry, though he knows ...

He sees it in the eyes of the people running down past him, headed for the docks. They're looking for escape, because they don't know how the danger is seated _there_ , in the shadow of the Gallows, and he can't be _certain_ that the Templars will explode outward, taking control of the city, but if Meredith gets her way...

Maker have mercy on them all.

He rounds the head of the stairs and takes a right-turn, shoving through the crowd. They have gone mad, all of them pieces in the beast that is Fearful Kirkwall, and Sebastian has nothing himself but a base animal urge to see his home, to discover for himself how it has been ruined, so he cannot blame them, only curse them for getting in his way.

He rounds a corner and a corner, and then ...

It's worse than anything he could have imagined. The Chantry is simply _gone_ , and in its place just this pile of rubble with ... oh, no, he can _see_ them, people and pieces of people, strewn like rubbish.

His knees shake, all of him gone to water, but he _must not falter now_ , so he presses on, lends his strength to a woman trying to push a huge piece of masonry off something bloody and torn at its base. They heave it to one side, and then she crouches down to wail, and he cannot stay. He must try again, and again he finds someone digging deep, and digs down beside them. There are _people_ trapped here, he must, he must...

It all becomes one thing, digging or shoving or dragging away. They uncover bodies, some dead, others so close to it that Sebastian cannot at first bear to leave them. But. He does what he can, where he can, and then he turns his strength to the digging-out, and the sun bears down mercilessly, but what can he do? There are sisters lying caught in the rubble, brothers too, penitents, elves and humans, all souls that the Maker would welcome to His side, and yet ... there is nothing he can do. He swipes a hand over his face, feeling the scour of grit on his skin, and he must go on. There is nothing else he can _do_.

It is late in the afternoon when Fenris finds him, light gone to orange that highlights only terrible things. Fenris bends his back to help Sebastian lift another beam, watches as Sebastian leans down to find that, yes, this one too is already dead, and does not need Sebastian now.

"Fenris," he gasps, and Fenris reaches for his hand, squeezing it hard. Sebastian recalls himself, looking up. "You. Is Tully ... Orana?"

"Unharmed," Fenris says, kneeling down beside him, and Sebastian puts his arms around those leather-clad shoulders, weak now in the face of this. He has not allowed himself to feel it until now, but he is weary to his bones and he _wishes_ , and his wishes come to naught.

Fenris is stiff, but he does not push Sebastian away. He says nothing, and Sebastian is glad of it because he cannot hear platitudes now, cannot bear encouragement. Today he uncovered the body of a novice who used to follow him to service, who would blush and stammer and sit in the row behind with her friends, all of whom had fetched tea trays and chalk to the teaching rooms for him, dipping their curtsies. Her name was Deanna, or Deirdre. She is gone to the Maker now, her face when he found her a perfect mask of surprise, and Sebastian will never let himself forget that, even if he cannot remember her name.

Fenris lets him weep and does not censure him for it, for which Sebastian is grateful but cannot thank him. When Sebastian draws away, Fenris catches him by the arms, holding him still. "People are saying the mages did this. There is a mob, gathering at the docks. The Templars have not yet come out of their stronghold, but when they do I fear what will happen."

Armed knights against merchants and beggars. It seems obvious how bloodily that will resolve if the mob raises arms to them. The peoplemay have numbers enough to overcome the Templars, if the knights are weakened, if they are unprepared. And then there will be no Templars nor Circle Mages left in Kirkwall. 

But if the Templars are not overwhelmed, what will they do? Annex the city? No Viscount in the Keep, and no Champion, now. No Grand Cleric -- Merciful Andraste, that stabs him in a place still too raw to look at -- only Meredith, or maybe Cullen, with only the Coterie and the Merchants Guild to stand against them.

Sebastian hopes for Cullen. Cullen may be willing to negotiate. Though he may not have the chance. There is no certainty that it will be the _Templars_ who live to walk out of the Gallows. 

Mages against a mob. _Maker preserve us._

Fenris clears his throat. "Was it? Do you know?"

"What?" Sebastian feels paralyzed. Elthina's example -- to do _nothing_ \-- was a mistake, but he can see in it her fear of taking a wrong action. Better to maintain the status quo than to tip the world toward something worse. But the status quo has been destroyed now and _there can be no compromise._

"Was it the mages who did this?"

Sebastian glances at him, recognises the tension in his friend, sees his exhaustion. Fenris is afraid of the mages, not the Templars -- of course he is, and of course it makes him stiff and anxious, his hands gone to tight claws. Fenris is already preparing to run, and Sebastian has nothing with which to convince him otherwise. He does not even know if he should try.

"Not the Circle mages. It was Hawke. And Anders' demon."

Fenris's eyes go round, but then his jaw firms, mouth thin and bitter. "They went to the Gallows for this."

"They went to the Gallows for Carver."

Sebastian must tell him, so he does. The constraints of confession feel very flimsy now but he tries his best not to break them, though he skirts very close. Fenris grows stiffer and stiffer, eyes shuttering, and when Sebastian says, "I'm sorry. I think ... I'm not sure if he lives, or no," Fenris drags in a breath that sounds like it shatters in his lungs. 

When Sebastian reaches out Fenris shakes his head, a hard sharp twist. "Do not." So Sebastian does not.

It takes a long time, long enough for Sebastian to remember where they are, and why his hands are streaked with blood and dust.

Fenris stands up, all the movements of his body jerking like a puppets', and swipes his wrist over his eyes. "There is looting in the markets, in Lowtown. I hold no illusions about what will happen when it reaches Hightown."

Of course there's looting. Kirkwall, always the same. Sebastian makes himself ask, "What will you do?"

"Take Tully and Orana to safety. I would beg Isabela's assistance, but I cannot risk Tully down at the docks. Not in the face of a mob of angry humans seeking a scapegoat." He turns his head so Sebastian cannot see his expression. "If Carver ..." He stops. Sebastian waits for him to go on. "If you come with us, there will be nothing left in Kirkwall to stay for."

Oh. But, Isabela. Sebastian has no room in him to think of her. She will be fine. She has never needed him before, and he cannot help her now.

"Will you come?"

"My place is here, " Sebastian says, clenching his hands, feeling the new wounds split over his knuckles.

"No. These people are dead, Sebastian, and you can do nothing to help them." 

For a moment Sebastian is enraged. How dare Fenris be so _flippant_? He opens his mouth to accuse Fenris of heartless selfishness, but cannot. Fenris has hunched his shoulders, face turned resolutely away, but he cannot hide the tremor of his shoulders. _When grief speaks,_ Elthina said once, _be kind enough not to listen too closely._

Sebastian takes a breath, and finds he has the strength for another. "Where will you go?"

A pause. Then-- "On that, I would welcome your counsel."

It is a plea, of sorts, and cannot be ignored. Sebastian forces himself to see the rubble of the Chantry, the people working and wailing over it, and the pain of his losses goes deep in him, down to his bones. But he looks at Fenris, and he knows there is only one course open to him, to be support and succor for his friend, the last of them, the one who needs him the most.

Isabela never needed him. Hawke ... he is done with Hawke. For now. One day he will get his satisfaction of Hawke and Anders both, but now?

"Then it is yours, my friend, for as long as you need it."

Fenris does not relax, but something goes out of him then, and he turns to Sebastian, determination writ large in his face. "Good. Let us be gone, then."

Sebastian struggles to his feet. This, at least, is something to cling to when all else has gone to chaos. "Lead the way," he says, though ... it doesn't matter what he wants. This is what is before him, the Maker's Will clear to him for once in his sorry life. He will save his friend, if he can do nothing else, will make Fenris and Orana and Tully's lives his legacy.

And after that? 'After that' can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, sorry about the delay on updates >_> Things have been ... tense. Don't worry about me; I'm okay, just super stressed. Hopefully the next chapter (which is already mostly written) won't take too long!


	45. Chapter 45

Carver comes to with a jolt that tears a gasp from his throat. It wracks him from end to end, arching him up against himself, and then he thuds down onto the hard ground, shaking with the force of whatever had been done to him. Magic. It must be. Nothing else feels as sharp and hard as that, except maybe a knife and -- _Oh_ \-- the weight of memory slams into him. 

Garrett. Margie. The _Knight Commander_ , and he jerks up, tries to straighten but there are firm hands pushing him back down, and a no-nonsense voice snapping at him, "Stay still! Maker's Light, don't undo all my good work."

He blinks, and Senior Enchanter Edith's face swims into view. She's blurry. He blinks hard but the blurriness doesn't clear. One of his eyes feels strange, so he closes it, and Edith comes into focus. He recognises the worry on her face, all the wrinkles beside her eyes sharp as knife-cuts, a look he never expected her to turn on _him_.

"Are you well, my knight?"

 _Cullen_. Carver draws a breath, and it sears his lungs, making him cough and cough. Someone does something, more magic, the cool minty taste of it nauseating now, when he does not want it. But his cough subsides, and again there are firm hands on him, easing him up, and Edith and Cullen staring at him as though he is some kind of miracle.

"'m fine," he manages, but then he has to stop to breathe in again, and again his lungs seem wrong, weak, broken maybe, and his eye .... But he _has_ to. "Fine, ser. Are _you_ well?"

The sound Cullen makes cannot be a laugh, but it sure sounds like one, and then he's gripping Carver's shoulder hard as a vice. "I am perfectly well. And you are a liar, my knight. Be still, please."

Carver feels wrecked, a huge web of hurt spinning out from his jaw, down one side of his body all the way to his elbow, covering his ribs and the edges of his scalp, but he _is_ fine, or at least he's not _dead_. Surely that must count for something.

He takes in his surrounds, and they make no sense at first. They're in one of the rooms off the main courtyard, shielded from the view of it, and there's Cullen and the Senior Enchanter, and behind them several knights and mages, all bunched up in clusters. Carver blinks, his bad eye stinging and blurry but _mostly_ okay. There's Barker -- Maker bless him -- and Rue too, looking coolly self-possessed, but the rest are a _mess_. Carver catches Barker's eye and doesn't miss his wince. Something's wrong with Carver's face, he knows it, the skin pulled sore and taut, but there's no time to care about that. He can't ignore the urgency in the air, stretched tight over the terror in _everyone's_ bones. He has to get up, has to--

"Can you do nothing more?" Cullen demands, and Carver is confused by it until Edith clears her throat and he realises the question is not for him.

"He'll keep the use of his eye," she says brusquely. "I can't give him more than that, without time we don't have. Selwyn," and she grimaces, expression shuttering. "Selwyn could have done it. This is beyond my skill."

It makes no sense. Carver's _fine_ , or close enough, even with his bad eye.

"Is he well enough to--" but Cullen checks himself, expression twisting with something Carver can't identify. "I need him," Cullen says quietly. "I need him whole enough to do what is necessary."

Edith looks sour, but then she has a hand in the centre of Carver's chest, not holding him down any longer, just anchoring herself to him long enough for a burst of magic to flare beneath his ribs. It's cold and prickly, stinging him from inside out, but before he can protest she takes her hand away and he can _feel_ it, the shudder and buck of his muscles like he's been doused in icy water. Ennervated, they call it, a fresh burst of energy like a second wind, and he's grateful for it because now he feels like he might be only _half_ dead.

She nods, brusque as always. "There. That should be enough."

He tries to get up, but the skin of his shoulder pulls horribly, tightening down his neck, and he shudders, all of it unpleasant and unwelcome. "Ser?"

Cullen's expression is grim. "Carver. I need you to ..." He hesitates, uncertainty spilling across his face, but he shakes himself and there, the stern mask of the Knight Captain comes over him and Carver is _so glad_. If Cullen can look like that then everything can't be as bad as he fears. "I need you to go down to the apprentice quarters and evacuate them."

At first Carver doesn't get it. "What's happening?" There's a long pause, and Carver can't bear it. "Ser? What's going on?"

When Cullen does not immediately answer, Edith makes a frustrated noise. "The Chantry has been destroyed. Meredith blames us for it, and now she has called for the slaughter of every mage in Kirkwall." She says it so matter-of-factly that it takes him a handful of heartbeats to understand. "Orsino," she adds, sounding venomous, "is leading his rebellion, and Cullen is leading _his_."

" _What?_ " But of course that's what's happening. And he knew it, when he drew that knife. Maker, what was he thinking? This is all his fault. 

No time for that -- memory presses hard on him and he has to know. 

"My brother."

Cullen shakes his head. "I'm sorry. Your brother is gone."

Oh. Carver never imagined it would hurt this much but it skewers him, going in under his ribs and sticking there, ready to bleed him out. It can't be true. Garrett has always been immortal, hasn't he? 

Carver remembers the duel with the Arishok, and how deeply he'd despaired, then. No. Not immortal. Just lucky.

Maker, it hurts. But he knows his duty, and he cannot let his stupid _feelings_ get in the way of what must be done. "Okay. _Okay._." It's everything but. "What are we going to do?"

Cullen's expression firms, going hard as granite. "In her madness Meredith has called for the Rite of Annulment." He hesitates, eyes seeking Carver's for a moment before skittering away. "Even now there are knights in the Gallows cutting down any mage they can find. They _cannot_ have our apprentices. Do you understand?"

Of course they can't. The apprentices are _children_. And mages. It's the duty of a Templar to protect them. Carver is the Lieutenant in charge of the Apprentice Quarters. They are his responsibility. 

But. "I'm with you, ser. I won't leave you." 

Even if Cullen did send him into confinement, even if Cullen's lost faith in him, Carver will not leave him here, now, to combat the madness of this alone.

Cullen shakes his head. "You must do as I order you, Hawke. I can trust no-one else."

"But ser--"

"I have no use for you here," Cullen says, so sharply Carver flinches from his tone before he understands what Cullen has _said_. 

Oh. _Maker._ No fucking _use_ for him? Carver can't ... no, but he must. And he has nothing to argue with, nothing that could answer the finality in his Captain's words. So he has no other choice. "All right, ser," he says, though he _wants_. "As you say."

"I will have your _word_ , Knight Lieutenant," Cullen insists, and Carver is struck by the tremor in his voice, and belatedly by the realisation that -- whatever Meredith might have said -- Cullen still considers Carver a Lieutenant of the Order.

His throat is dry as dust. "You have my word, my Captain." If only Cullen could understand it.

"Good." Cullen looks as though he means to go on, but just then the world trembles, something bitter spreading in the air. Magic, and not the good kind. Carver sees the knights and mages here shudder under the weight of it. Cullen too, but when his head comes up his expression is fixed. "Then, Ser Barker, if you will?" Barker nods, though he still will not look Carver in the face. "Go, my knight. Remember your first duty is to our apprentices, and after that ... you must rely on your judgement."

 _My knight._ Carver pushes himself up. How he _hurts_. But he has his orders, and has given his word. That's all he's got. "Where do I take them?"

For a moment Cullen wavers, but then he says, "Somewhere safe. Starkhaven, if you must. If we fail here, Starkhaven may be the only place they will _be_ safe." Because Tristram is there, and Tristram is _reliable_ , so it makes sense, even if his heart aches because ... because. _I'll bring them back again,_ he thinks but he can't say it. What if he can't? What if this is the last time he sees Cullen alive?

"If I can't stay with you, ser," he says, "Then I'll do everything I can to keep them safe."

Cullen nods, already turning away. "Go in the Maker's Light, Hawke. Andraste guide and shelter you." He doesn't look back, and that, more than anything, makes Carver certain that he must go.

"And you, Knight Captain." 

That's it. That's all he can have, right now. So Carver staggers out into the corridor, though the tearing in his chest feels like he's left his heart behind.

Immediately, there's the press of someone close on his bad side, and he rounds on them, arms up to defend himself, but it's Ser Maglene, and she has a sword in her hands -- _his sword_ , balanced across her palms like an offering. 

"Ser!"

She holds it out and Carver takes it, the weight of the thing welcome now when he has nothing else. _Cullen_. He can't go back. Cullen _said_. Carver curls his fingers around the hilt and draws the blade free.

 _My brother gave me this sword._ And-- _My brother is dead._ He takes a breath.

"Thanks, Ser Maglene," he says, and he can hear his own voice hard as stone. He tips her a nod. "You can go to the Knight Captain, now."

She doesn't move. "He won't miss me. So I'll go with you, ser, if you'll have me."

She can't. She mustn't. He glances up, sees Barker there with his hands in fists, and Rue too, on the tips of her toes, ready to run. With him. His _knights_. He can't send Maglene away. She's a knight of the Order, and knows her duty. Apparently she thinks that's with him. And she's willing, her shoulders going back, hand ready to draw her sword if it's needed.

Carver breathes out. "With me, then, Ser Maglene." He doesn't miss the shift in her stance, gone from defiant to determined, and she falls in as easy as if they'd drilled it, taking up position behind as though born to it. 

He has Barker on his right, Ruvena on his left, and this, if nothing else, feels _right_.

"Let's do this," he says, breaking into a jog. _Maker protect us,_ he prays, but he's not even sure he believes in the Maker anymore.

* * *

Cullen stares out over his troops, and never before has command weighed on him so fully. He has been a pen-pusher for so many years, has done nothing truly military save for actions taken in the Qunari uprising, and when he led the assault on Carver's Tevinter Magister. Now the future of the Gallows is at stake. The lives of his knights, of the mages in his care, all resting in the palm of his hand.

And in the other...

 _Carver's_ life ... He has made the right decision. He tells himself this, though it is hard to make himself believe it now that Carver has gone to an uncertain future.

He feels Agatha watching him, and makes himself look at her, though he knows what he will see there. "You disapprove," he says, and though it is not the first time she has disapproved his actions, it may well be the last. Such are the stakes here.

She shrugs, settling into parade rest at his elbow. "I think you just threw away a resource because you don't want to lose it."

It's true, and it does not come near to describing what he has done. "Ser Carver will protect a resource I _will not_ allow to be destroyed."

He means the apprentices, and she must know that, but still she says, "And in the doing of it he won't die with the rest of us, is that right?" As always, she strikes to the heart of it mercilessly. He is grateful for her, but cannot now help but resent her directness. She goes on-- "You think you're doing him a kindness, but that boy would rather fight and fall by your side than live to his dotage thinking he could have saved you, given the chance."

It is insightful, he supposes, but unnecessarily cruel. "Please allow me a little selfishness, Knight Corporal."

Maybe she realises that it's the closest he can bring himself to admitting the truth, that for himself he would sacrifice his life, the Gallows, Kirkwall, all of the Free Marches if only he could keep Carver safe. But he cannot, and so. Here they are.

Agatha shifts her feet. "I'm not keen on dying today, ser. Nor tomorrow, should we get that far. Got a fiance in Hightown who'd be mightily pissed-off if I did something so foolish."

Cullen cannot help the twitch of his mouth. "I regret I may not be able to attend your wedding, Ser Agatha. Please accept my apologies for that."

"No." She isn't a tall woman, but when she tips her head back like this, chin in the air, he's hard-pressed to remember that fact. "A little thing like mutiny isn't enough for you to get out of my _wedding_ , ser. I think you owe me that much."

She's right, and it's so trivial that it makes him laugh, just a little. How magnificent she is, able to draw such a thing from him in such a time as this. _Ah, Agatha._ He is blessed to have her. _Thank-you, my Maker._

"Then I will endeavour to make the time to attend," he says, and her smug smile is enough for him, now.

If he sees Carver again ... it is an 'if' the size of the universe, but should it come to pass he will do everything he can to make good on it, despite everything he has felt in the wake of Carver's revelation about the demon that possessed him.

_Carver. I will tell you how I love you, again, no matter what, because you do not seem to have understood it, all the times I have said so before._

And in the meantime? He has a _duty_.

"Ser Agatha, I need to know how many knights I have at my disposal. And how many mages capable of combat," he adds, because he has been foolish but he is not a _fool_. 

She grins. How lovely it is to see. "As you say, ser," she says, and her agreement here is priceless.

"As I have said, my knight."

She turns to shout at a gaggle of knights gathered in the corner of their bastion. Maybe they'll make it out of here, and maybe they won't. He breathes in, and lets the breath go because ... All he has before him is this, his knights, his mages, and the corrupt and the wicked. 

Carver is gone. May he be _safe_.

And even if he is not, Cullen _will not_ falter.

* * *

Marching through the Gallows feels _wrong_ , like swimming against the tide, but it's what he has to do so he _does_ , though it sickens him. This corridor -- how many times has he walked it, joking with Rue or Barker or _Pax_? This is his _home_ , has been for years. Even when he was exiled to Starkhaven he missed the stone walls of the Gallows, missed the sense of belonging here that has now been shattered completely.

They meet clusters of knights along the way, and they're all so scared, desperate for direction. The first lot falls in with him gratefully, eager for the security of a senior officer, and Carver tries very hard not to wonder what will happen if they disagree with his orders later. 

The second are more troublesome. The Knight Corporal in charge strikes out with her sword, though he sees her hands shake on the hilt of it. "Captain or Commander!" she yells, and it take Carver a fraught heartbeat to realise she's asking him a question.

"Ser Kay?" At least he remembers her name, this time. "If you're asking who I'm _with_ ," he says, but she has already lowered her blade, looking too relieved for words.

"Knight Lieutenant! Sorry, but you're for the Knight Captain, right?"

It's true, so it's not hard to nod. "Yeah. All the way."

She twists, gesturing over her shoulder. A handful of knights slink out of cover to present themselves. Some of them even salute, which is unexpected. But when Knight Corporal Kay barks out a, "Fall in!" they _do_ it, neat as pins, and Carver thinks maybe it's not going to be that bad, after all.

He's wrong, of course. Burrowing into the Gallows he finds other clusters of knights, and while many of them bark the same question at him it does not always come good.

"For the Knight Captain!" he yells, and the knights before him put their swords _to_ him, ready to fight. What is he supposed to _do_?

He has Barker and Ruvena and Maglene, and they've collected Hugh and Alistair and Moira and a bunch of others, but even if they have the might of numbers now, it doesn't mean they're right. Knights Templar in opposition ... how can this be a thing that is happening? 

"Try not to kill them," he says. Ruvena rolls her eyes but does as he orders.

They end up with this useless tail of prisoners and the injured, and he doesn't know what to do with them. He wants to shove the prisoners aside, in a room with a few knights on guard, but that's not something he can do, because either he drags on and drags them with him, in a knot at the back of him, or he shunts them aside, and sacrifices a few of his knights to watch over them, and every stop would take a few more of his knights from him. The numbers are against him. He can't. Urgh, it's _awful_.

"Barker," he snaps, and Barker comes up beside him, head bent close for privacy. "What's the least number of knights you think can get us down to the Apprentice Quarters, and then out of the Gallows?"

Barker frowns, but he's thinking, so Carver waits, hoping for a good answer.

"We could do it with only five knights, yourself included. You, me, Ser Ruvena, Ser Hugh, Ser Maglene." He hesitates there, eyes cutting up sharp and dark. "I'd like Ser Wertold and Ser Moira with us. And Alistair, if I had my way."

And if Carver had his way, he'd say the same. "All right. Good to know."

"Ser," Barker says, stiff as a fucking board, so Carver stops to hear him out. "Are you low on lyrium?"

He _is_ , but .. he'll be okay, right? No, that's not how lyrium works, oh Maker, he wishes Barker had never said a thing. "I'll be fine," he says, though he's gone dry for so long he doesn't ... Maker, how he'd beg for it. But it'll send him giddy, and he can't afford that with the world in tatters around them. He won't, and he straightens his spine. "If you've some going spare, then distribute it amongst our knights."

Barker frowns so. "We need you capable, ser."

"Do I look fucking incapable?" 

Barker's flinch is telling, but he shakes his head. "Not even, ser. As you say."

As he does fucking say. Though ... no. No, he said, and that's it. Still. "Thanks, anyway. Keep some for me, if you want."

Barker nods, relief streaking across his face like new rain. "Of course, ser."

It's enough. "Let's get a hurry on. Hate to think what's going down in the lower levels."

They pick up some mages on their way, and the majority of them are fucking _glad_ to come along. The others ... Carver lets them run, if they run, and the few who don't get a hard Smite or two and then they're shuffled in with the other prisoners, but they're worse of a burden, need minimum of a knight each to keep them under control. Carver aches with the _slowness_ of it all. And every stop gives him time to _think_ , which is the last thing he wants because...

Because. _Cullen_.

 _I have no use for you,_ he remembers, and the pang of despair that comes with it is crippling. 

He doesn't have time for this. He has a duty, and he needs to _do_ it. Cullen gave him _one fucking order_ and ... and he must do this. It's all he has left.

There's another clutch of Knights who don't come easy, and Carver has to hold back, lets Ruvena take point, because she's armoured and he isn't, and that smarts, honestly. Her grin when she catches his sour look is fucking gorgeous, though, because _she_ doesn't flinch from the sight of him, no ser.

He wonders...

"Rue," he says, in one of the moments they can catch their breath. "Honest, how bad is it?"

"Reckon we'll be fine," she says, wiping the sweat off her brow with a dirty gauntlet. "Getting cold feet, Ferelden?"

Oh, that's good, but he has to ask. "I meant, how bad do I look?"

She blinks at him, and then this awful _pity_ slides over her face. "Not so bad. When the Knight Captain dragged you out of there you looked a whole lot worse."

It's not enough to satisfy, but he lets it go because ... Cullen dragged him out. _Cullen_ , and Maker, how he _wishes_.

But.

"Okay. Get your puppies, we're moving out."

The Apprentice Quarters are at the end of a long corridor, a damned death-trap if they're caught down here, and there's a barrier up over the entryway, gleaming with magic. Carver doesn't feel up to taking it down, but Barker calls for Ser Wertold, and the boy steps up, sheathing his sword. He looks so _focussed_ , and Carver feels it when the Cleanse soaks up the magic blocking their way.

Immediately there's a whump of fresh magic, and Barker takes it on his shield, channeling it into the ground, sword already coming up to--

"No!" For a moment Carver thinks he's too late, but Barker pulls the strike, stepping off, and Carver takes advantage of it to shove his way through. "We're on your side!"

Senior Enchanter Timony stares, magic furling around him like smoke, but he hesitates long enough for Carver to get inside the door.

All the apprentices are herded up against the far wall, beds overturned like barriers between them and freedom, but several little heads poke up over the top, and the magic bubbling in that corner is enough to make Carver feel faint. 

He takes a breath, fixing his eyes on the Enchanter in the middle of the room, and the magic boiling around him.

"It's okay," Carver says, sheathing his sword and holding out his hands. "We've come to evacuate the apprentices. You can come too, if you like," he adds, but it isn't enough to make Timony let go of the power fizzing at his fingertips.

Timony glances over Carver's shoulder, and Carver doesn't dare look. The Enchanter's face firms, chin gone up, and he says, "I won't let you hurt them," hard as a _rock_.

"I'm not here to hurt them."

"The Right of Annulment--"

" _Fuck_ the Right of Annulment," Carver spits. "Meredith's out of her mind, and the Knight Captain said to _get them out_ , so that's what I'm going to do."

For a long moment all Timony does is stand there, but then, mercy of mercies, he drops his hands, the magic subsiding to a dull throb, and Carver can breathe again. "Promise me, ser knight." How it must cost him to demand it.

And Carver-- "I swear it. On my mother's grave," he says, knowing too well how he has never visited her in it, and how he might never again have the chance. He shakes the thought off, though, because _now is not the time_ , and meets Timony's eye with all the sincerity he can muster. "I'll get them out of the Gallows if it's the last thing I do."

Timony must see something in his face beneath whatever it is that has the the rest flinching from him so, because he nods, turning his head to call, "All right! You can come out," over his shoulder.

The apprentices come out of cover like frightened puppies and Carver wishes it was anything other than how it is, because he has to _get them out_ , and they're just _children_ , all of them, _his kids_ , and ... and he has to.

"Get your things," he yells, but then he sees that they have, each of them, a small bundle tied up with cloth and slung over a shoulder, and that's good, but...

One of the little boys is crying, an older girl trying to soothe him into silence. Carver turns away from it, unable to bear how it feels to see them all like this, scared and made obedient by their fear.

"Line up, all of you," Timony says briskly, and then he makes a show of counting their heads. There are twenty-six of them in total, and it takes Carver a moment to realise why that number seems wrong.

"Where's Libby?" he demands, and when Timony just blinks at him he makes himself ask again. "Lilibeth. _Lily_ , she calls herself now. Where is she?"

"Ngaire and Illowen are missing also," Timony says, sharp as a knife-cut, and Carver feels the rebuke in it, though he cannot allow it to show. But Timony relents, and says quietly, "I believe Ngaire is serving a punishment in the laundry, today. For Illowan and Lily, though, I cannot say."

"Lily's with Enchanter Keili." Carver turns to find Tamika and Nellie together hand in hand, and it's Tamika who's standing up to him, her little face gone fierce, though tinged with uncertainty. "Enchanter Keili's gunna take care of her, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she'd better," Carver says, though he can't be certain, but he can't go looking for her and ... oh, Maker, he doesn't know. But he knows his duty so he lifts his chin, trying to look sure when he feels anything but. "Okay! Got your things? Let's go!"

They bunch up together, and now more than one of them are crying, but Carver can't worry about that right now, he just can't, so he doesn't, makes himself go to the door and usher them through. They make an untidy crowd, none of them drilled in keeping formation, and Carver has to bite down on his urge to yell at them for getting out of it. They're children, he has to remember that, and they're _his_ , so. So. He doesn't yell, but he drags Ruvena aside.

"Can you get them to come along neatly?"

She snorts, but she's looking over his shoulder and there's a tightness around her eyes that he recognises. "Do my best, ser, but they're not recruits. They don't know any better."

"I know. But ... do what you can."

Ruvena nods, distracted by something Carver doesn't want to turn and see. "As you say, ser. You!" And he must turn, then, to see her bear down on a boy straggling at the back. "Get back in line, or I swear, we'll leave you right here, do you get me?"

The boy yelps something Carver doesn't catch, but he gets back in line, and, Maker, it's like herding cats, honest.

The issue now is how to get out. Carver hadn't really thought much beyond the first half of Cullen's order: to get the apprentices. Well, now he has them, and now he needs an exit. They could head up to the barge docks, but it's a long way, back toward the fighting, and his brother ... Garrett is up there somewhere, a body cooling on the flagstones of the courtyard, and Carver can't, he can't go back there, he must, Maker what is he--

"Ser, a moment?" 

Barker is at his elbow, with Wertold at _his_ , both so serious Carver has to listen. "Go on, Knight Corporal."

"I don't think it wise to go back the way we came," Barker says, and it's close enough to Carver's thoughts that it seems a gift from the Maker. "I'd suggest we take another route."

"Such as?"

Barker glances at Wertold, which makes no sense. "Have you heard of the Mage Underground?"

Carver shakes his head, but then ... no, he does know. Something someone said once, and then again Selwyn (fuck, _Selwyn_ ) mentioned it the other night. 'Dozens of escapes' he said, and suddenly it makes a kind of sense. "The mages who escape. They ... what, they've been going under the ground?"

"The caves beneath the Gallows, ser," Wertold pipes up, though he does it quietly enough. 

And Barker adds, "There are any number of passageways out of the Gallows from there. If you know a good way to get _into_ the caves."

Carver looks from one of them to the other, considering it. Everyone knows about the caves. Everyone's warned not to go down there, though, because it's not safe, too many cave-ins and sinkholes and giant fucking spiders. Lots of people use them for trysts, though, and by-and-large no-one goes down to check because, well, there's a _lot of fucking caves_ down there and it _isn't safe_.

Except, if the mages have been using it ... Maker, how desperately they must want to get away, if they're willing to brave all that.

"And you know a good way?" Carver asks, but it isn't Barker who answers him, but Wertold.

"I found out a few, when I was looking for Mage Anika."

Carver hesitates, remembering that conversation in his office what feels like a lifetime ago. He should ask about it, find out what Wertold found out, but it's all such a nothing in the midst of this.

He'll ask when he can, but right now? "Any we can use?" And, thinking-- "Where do they come out?"

"There's one we could get to from here," Barker says briskly, and outlines a route that is short enough and uncomplicated enough that Carver feels vaguely hopeful that this might work. "It comes out in Lowtown, at the mouth of the docks. From there ... I thought you might have some ideas."

Carver wonders if they'll be able to get a ship from there, but that's a bridge to cross when they get to it, and right now he's not even sure they _can_ , so he nods, trying to look decisive. "Okay. Let's do that. Ser Wertold, you're our guide once we're down in it. Barker?" Barker nods. "Get Ruvena to take point. I'll be right behind her."

For a moment Barker looks conflicted, but then he nods, mouth firming into a thin line, and he says, "I can think of no-one better qualified to do so," before turning away.

Whatever that's about. They press on, but it's slow going. It's not the apprentices weighing them down; they come along as fast as they can, and it's heartening how the older ones chivvy the smaller down the corridors. He sees one of the boys carrying a little girl, who is sniffling into his collar, and both Tamika and Nellie have gathered tiny shadows that clutch at their hands, eyes gone wide with terror. The prisoners, though...

"We have to get rid of those," Carver mutters, and it's only when he sees Barker blanch that he realises how it must have sounded. "I don't mean slit their throats, Barks, I just mean--"

"They should be separated and left behind," Barker agrees, his expression clearing. "I recommend Knight Corporal Caldera for that."

It's a good choice, Carver thinks, so he gestures for Ser Caldera to come up. "I need you to take charge of the prisoners," he starts, but just at that moment someone screams, "Contact!" and he has to turn.

Oh. Maker.

It's Margitte.

She has her helmet off, half her hair come down from its pins to stream about her face in a pale shimmer, and all Carver can think is, _You killed my brother. I'll never forgive you for that._

It takes three heartbeats to cross the floor, and when he gets there his sword is already drawn, a comforting weight in his hands. "Margie!"

The shortname is inappropriate, he knows it, but it comes out of his mouth by itself and he cannot put it back. 

Margitte bares her teeth, and if only, if _only_ she were on their side, she's a fucking _behemoth_ , but...

" _Yield_ , Hawke! I will have your surrender."

"Not fucking likely!" She killed his _brother_. He can't forgive her, not ever.

She does not seem put out by this, simply raises her shield. There are knights clustered at her back, and she is not an officer but these knights seem determined to support her all the same. Carver can feel their determination, and knows, with a sickening jolt, that he will have to kill them to get past.

He doesn't want to do that. He doesn't want any of this.

But he has his orders.

"We've got the numbers, Margie," he tries, though he's pretty certain that logic won't hold her now. There's blood on her gauntlets -- Garrett's, he just fucking knows it -- and specks of it dappling her cheek. "Let us pass or I swear to the Maker--"

"As though you have not already forsaken your oaths to _Him_." She sounds so calm, holding her ground as if this is only a spar on the sand of the practice yard, as if she might be able to bend him to her will with her certainty.

No. He's certain too. He ... he isn't, but he knows his duty. _Cullen, I'll do it, whatever you order me, I'll do all of it._

"The Maker never said anything about slaughtering mages like fish in a fucking barrel!"

"The Chantry--"

"Fuck the Chantry!" He registers the intake of breaths behind him and knows he has shocked his knights, and a small part of him that stands off from this wonders if this is where their faith in him will break. But. He has only what is before him, and he _must_. "The Chantry makes up the fucking rules as it goes along! Don't stand with them against the things that are _right_!"

For a moment she hesitates, but then her frown comes down heavy on her brow. "And you believe yourself right to go against it. Your corruption goes deeper than I could ever have imagined." Her disgust is palpable, but Carver has no time for it.

"Margitte, listen to me for one bloody second. The Knight Captain ordered me to--"

"Cullen is as apostate as the mages you protect," Margitte says, crisp as a matron in her own drawing-room, and she shifts her stance, poised to charge. Carver shifts his to take it, remembering too late that he is unshielded, unarmoured, has nothing between him and _her_. Maker, her sword when it went in, such a sound it made. Is it still bloody? He can't look.

"Then so am I," he says, and he's braced for her, but that is the moment when someone steps up to her shoulder, tall and dark and terrible in her shadow.

"Ser Margitte," he says, and then, nodding as if this is nothing more than a spat in the mess, "Knight Lieutenant Carver."

"Rochard," Carver says, uncertain now. Rochard is one of Meredith's, and one of her best. Carver hadn't thought about him at all before now, but now he despairs because Rochard? If he could have avoided him he would have. Fighting Rochard feels like fighting Agatha, or Nottely. Or Margitte, when it comes down to it, whatever she has done. That he has seen her do. _Oh._

This is it, then. He shifts his feet, ready to give the order to rush them but Rochard makes an amused noise, turning to Margitte with a smile.

"Why do you stop them? They mean you no harm, if you would let them pass."

Margitte spares him only a glance. "I will not allow them to carry out the orders of a mutineer."

But all Rochard does is chuckle, smoothing his beard in a very Orlesian sort of way. It's distracting. Carver resolves not to be distracted. "But they are our brothers and sisters. If you mean to dissuade, reason would be more effective than steel, no?"

"Steel is the only language they will understand." She sounds so _certain_ , and Carver ... _Maker, don't make me fight her, I don't ... I don't want this!_ And, _We were friends, once._ And now, never again.

"They have children with them," Rochard says, too reasonable, and Margitte shakes herself as if he is a fly on her brow she must be rid of.

"The children are apostate, now."

"True." Rochard reaches up to put his hand on her shoulder, such a companionable gesture. "But nowhere in Thedas is the slaughter of children considered _right_."

For a moment Margitte seems to waver. But then she steadies, sword out, stalwart as he has always known her to be. "The Knight Commander ordered it. I know my duty."

And Carver knows _his_ , so there seems no other outcome possible.

Rochard smiles. Carver hates his smile, hates how easily he stands there, as if they are discussing something small and pointless, a matter of the rules and how to circumvent them to get what you want. Maker, he's so _Orlesian_. Carver hates him and--

"Then I suppose I have no choice."

He says it so blithely, as if it's nothing, so the Smite takes Carver entirely by surprise. It's a small Smite, a large thing pulled tight and focussed in a narrow band, and all the stronger for it. Margitte goes stiff, eyes wide, and then she collapses, Rochard taking her in his arms and, very carefully, laying her down on the floor. He straightens, one hand going up at once to forestall whatever might happen next -- they are all so used to obeying him that every knight in sight of this goes instantly still, Carver included. What does it _mean_?

"You are taking the apprentices to safety, is that not so?"

Rochard's expression is smooth, and Carver cannot see through it. "Yeah," he says, lowering his swordpoint but still only a heartbeat away from driving on to face whatever Rochard does next.

Rochard nods, glancing down. "Such a pity. Ser Margitte has promise, but she is too fervent, allowing her ardour to overcome strategy. As with the Commander herself," he adds, louder now, so his voice carries down the corridor to the knights clustered behind him. "We will not be slaughtering children today."

Carver can't believe it. Except, this is what's happening. Apparently. He drops his sword into a defensive stance, not letting it go completely because he's not completely stupid. "So you'll help us?"

"I will stand aside while you make your escape," Rochard corrects. He makes a firm gesture with one hand; the knights behind him hesitate, some of them eying Margitte prone at his feet, but they come up, eventually, all the same. "If it is, indeed, escape you seek."

"Yeah. Yeah," Carver says, weary with indecision and decision and foolish wishes. If only it could have been another way. If Margie hadn't ... but if _Garrett_ ... but he doesn't know. _This is all my fault._ He shoves the thought away, ruthless because even if it's true _now is not the time_.

"Then you know of a way out," Rochard prompts, and Carver ... he's torn. Should he say? What if Rochard ... but Rochard has already laid low one knight in his way, and (if he is being honest) has no reason to stop them.

"Might do," Carver says gruffly, and Rochard nods. 

"I will exchange this knowledge for our escort to your exit," he says, and it takes a moment for Carver to parse it, but once he has it seems obvious what he has to do.

"All right. Wait a minute," and he turns to find Caldera at his shoulder, looking dire as fuck about all this but still his, still his knight. "Get the prisoners together, and find a place to hold 'em til the Knight Captain needs you. You're in charge, Caldera, so don't fuck this up."

For once Caldera looks serious as he nods. "Of course, Knight Lieutenant. I'll do my duty."

Shortest speech he ever made and Carver's glad of it, claps him on the shoulder before turning back.

"Okay, Rochard. Let's do this."

Rochard smirks -- Carver's not sure his face can do anything else -- and gestures for his (his? His now, in any case) knights to fall in.

It's okay, much to Carver's disbelief, and they make their way down, deep into the bowels of the Gallows, to a supply room which is narrow enough that Carver thinks it would make a marvellous trap, if that's what it is. But Wertold seems sure, and Carver has no reason to doubt him, helps instead when Wertold needs assistance shifting crates out of the way.

"Here, ser," he says, rubbing streaks of dirt and dust into the sweat of his brow. "Through here."

It's a small gap in the stone, not much of a gap at all, and almost too small for an armoured knight, but Carver supposes that only makes it more appealing to a mage sneaking away. 

They go in. It's tight and horrible, an awful funnel, and Carver can't help thinking it the best trap in the world, should they be caught here. He feels jittery and tense, waiting for them to come through, but he stands there, watching every one of them, ready for the moment when it all goes bad, but it doesn't, and then he's the last at the opening, looking back through at Rochard, who reaches up to clap Carver on the shoulder, his eyes dark and intense with it.

"Good work, Knight Lieutenant. Maker be with you, in your efforts. I hope to see you again, someday."

Those words make it real, somehow, suddenly it _becomes_ real. He's leaving. Again. Cullen sent him away and ... Maker, this is worse than last time because _last_ time it had been for his own good, Cullen said, and this time? For the good of the apprentices. Maker, how he _wishes_. 

But. This is it, he's going, he has to. 

He smacks Rochard's pauldron with one bare hand (how he would love his armour right now) and says, "Until next time."

"Until then." Rochard smiles, and it's an Orlesian smile but it gives Carver some hope because of the warmth in it, as if Rochard believes he can do this, crazy as it is. "I look forward to it."

That's it. Carver turns his back -- on the Gallows, on Rochard and, oh, on _Cullen_ , and it tears him inside somewhere he didn't know he had anything left to tear.

_I'll see you again, ser._

He might. It isn't impossible, just incredibly unlikely. Maker bless and protect them all.

"All right! Get in line! We're moving out."

He'd been so worried about the caves, but it's far less terrible than he'd imagined, a few spills and tears and that's _it_ , though he hears the skittering of giant spiders on the edge of things. Timony makes mage lights, and the spiders stay away. Better than he could ever have hoped, and then he's called to the head of the column because Wertold has found a trap-door, and they have to go single-file to get up the ladder.

But then they're out, and the air is sour with Lowtown's stink but _so fucking welcome_ , and Carver breathes it in deep because they're _free_ , Maker, how _relieved_ he is.

"Barker!" he calls, and Barker comes up out of the sea of faces turning to him, eyes wide with anxious alertness, and he calls back.

"Ser! All present and accounted for!"

"Good!" Carver gestures toward the docks. "We have to move. Get to it!"

They go, a gaggle of apprentices hemmed in by a ring of knights, and Carver thinks, _It's going to be okay. Maker, it should have been harder than this, surely_. 

Is he borrowing trouble? He can't know, but he's so _glad_ , and he relaxes a little, has a little space to feel pleased with himself, and then they spill out into the docks.

There's a mob waiting for them.

That's when everything goes wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'd planned for this to be max 50 chaps, but then I got to _here_ and ... I'm not sure I can pull it off. Potentially there will be some spillover. Sorry about that.


	46. Chapter 46

Rochard has never thought himself a great man, nor a good man. A good _enough_ man, perhaps, and he could not have gone on all these years if he’d thought himself a _bad_ man, though he supposes that is how all men and women consider themselves. Good enough to live with it, and so.

But never a great man, and never a _truly_ good man, not having turned a blind eye to some of the things he’s seen in the shadow of the Gallows. Still, he has tried to do what he could to improve matters for the recruits and mages in his care. And for some he has tried very hard to give shelter where it was needed.

In retrospect it has never been enough. He could have done more, could have sacrificed much to protect them better, but if Rochard has a flaw -- he has many, he knows it, but one in particular -- it has been laziness. It has been easy to ignore things that should not have been ignored, in the interest of his own comfort. Perhaps today he will repay the Maker for that selfishness.

Or perhaps he will buy his way to the Golden City with his actions, now, when they count the most.

His knights are a mixed lot, some deeply invested in protecting their charges, some as lazy in motivation as he has been -- he holds no illusions that they would not have gone along with a different officer with a different agenda. They follow him because he was first to claim them. This is why he stops, now, and turns to them.

He smiles, because he has always smiled whenever he had no reason not to, and addresses them as clearly as he can.

“Some of you wish to support the Knight Captain. That is admirable, for Cullen is a good man,” with the makings of a great man, “and deserving of your loyalty. Some of you are here simply because you do not care who it is that gives your orders, so long as they wear this,” and he taps a fist to his breastplate, with its flaming sword. “But perhaps some of you wish to do well in your duty to our mages. That is, after all, the duty of a Templar. Some of you may have forgotten that. I would encourage you to think of it now.”

He pauses, watching them, and seeing more than one stance shift with indecision. Good. They _should_ think on it. He does not blame them if they have forgotten. The Gallows has never been an easy arena in which to find one’s purpose. Now is an excellent time to consider it, if it is still under consideration.

“And so,” he says, knowing them as well as he does -- he has trained so many of them-- “I will fault none of you that choose to find your own way. But, should we later stand against one another, I will not show you the mercy I have shown to Ser Margitte this day. If you go, you go. That is your choice." And, because he has been a teacher for so long it that it is hard to shed, he adds, "Our choices are, after all, what makes us who we will become.”

More than one of them looks uncertain at this. Rochard goes on regardless. He cannot make their choices for them.

“For those who choose to stay, I will say this: Knight Commander Meredith has been led wrong by her fears, and I will not carry out the orders of a commander who has strayed so far from her duty.” He takes a breath, offers a silent prayer to the Maker and, again, he smiles. “I do not believe our charges deserve to be slaughtered wholesale in their beds. And so. Make your choice, my knights. Make it swiftly.”

He turns away, and does not fear a blade in his back, though he has every reason to do so.

It does not come. Some of them slip away, and perhaps they go to Cullen and perhaps to Meredith and perhaps to neither, and the remainder are slim in numbers but they will be enough. He hopes. He prays. _Maker, if it is Your will._

He leads his knights up to the Tranquil quarters, and he orders that all the doors be unlocked and thrown wide. The Tranquil are quiet, of course, blinking at him through the sudden outside light, none of them confused because they do not have the luxury to be so. They stand quietly together in a crowd, and Rochard searches through them for the one he wants above all others.

There. “Selwyn,” he says, and Selwyn does not smile, simply nods. How ill the mask of Tranquility suits him -- how Rochard misses the wryness of his smile. But he knows this is all that is left of Selwyn, and also that he is _enough_ , all the same.

“Rochard,” Selwyn says, and, “You do not mean to execute us.”

“No. You are free, now.” He lifts a hand to brush his gauntlet along the line of Selwyn’s jaw. He is still so lovely, and Rochard feels as he has always felt. Perhaps it was a mistake to have accepted Selwyn’s approaches. Perhaps it was a mistake to reject them as long as he did. If things could have been different ... but they could never have been so, not between them. So he says, “Your people are no threat, except in what you might choose to do with your freedom." And, because he must, he adds, "There is a way out of the Gallows, down in the dry stores." 

It is clear from his nod that Selwyn already knew this. Of course he had.

"I can take you down to it, if you wish, and see you safely through."

Selwyn shakes his head, light eyes steady. "I know a better one. And I won't go alone."

Of course. Rochard smooths his gauntlet down Selwyn’s chest, careful not to snag on the silks, and reaches to his own belt to unhook the ring of keys that hang there. He tucks them into a pocket of Selwyn’s robes, and gives Selwyn one last smile. There will be no more to give him, after this. It is a sacrifice he is willing to make, in the great wash of things. “Use your judgement. And be free, _mon cœur_. Maker bless you.” Andraste protect him.

Selwyn is so solemn. Rochard bears it because he must. “And you, Ser Knight.”

Rochard turns from him and walks down the corridor, gathering the last of his knights in his wake. “I cannot promise you much,” he calls to the Tranquil gathered there, “but if you wish to come with me I will take you to the Knight Captain. Perhaps he will shelter us all.”

He goes, and he knows they may all of them die today, but if so he will die satisfied that he has done the one thing that might make him a good man, at the end.

* * *

She's been pacing for hours. She can't stop now, too full of energy, too tired of being cooped up in Keili's room, too sick of hearing Keili shush her apprentice's fears, sick of not knowing. It's happening, whatever it is, out there in the Gallows. The magic in her bubbles like water in a pot, ready to boil over.

At the sound of a key in the lock Varania twists, magic spilling through her, because there is only one kind of person who might unlock that door and she will _rend them_ before she'll let them have _her_.

The door swings open. Varania gathers her magic to strike, but Keili screams, "No!" and Varania hesitates. 

It is _Selwyn_ silhouetted against the light of torches in the hall, and the effort it takes to haul her magic close is enough to make her dizzy. _Selwyn_. She could have struck _him_ with the Death of a Thousand Cuts. She wouldn't ... she would have, Maker curse her.

Selwyn's eyes slide from Varania (almost up in the doorway herself) to Keili (kneeling by the bed) to the apprentice (huddled in Keili's arms). "Come," he says, calm as stone, "I have a way out for us," and his smooth face makes Varania want to _rage_ , but she mustn't. She takes a deep breath and steps up to him, arms gone wide to tug him in. He allows it, though he does not hug her back. She hugs him all the harder to make up for it.

"Varania," he says, but it is flat, of course. She lets him go, stepping back to look over his shoulder. The corridor outside is empty, no Templars, no mages, no-one at all, and she can't quite understand it. 

Because she is not a fool, she asks, "How did you come by the keys?"

"Rochard gave them to me. Come with me."

Rochard. How Varania has hated him. She glances back to see Keili struggling to her feet, the apprentice (her name is Lily, Varania reminds herself) clinging to Keili's skirts. Keili puts an arm around those little shoulders, and looks Selwyn in the eye.

"Must we go?"

Selwyn nods. "We must. Meredith has called for the Rite of Annulment. We aren't safe here."

"The apprentices," and Keili looks torn, because (Varania realises) she knows. They can't go for them, they can only flee. Keili has never been willing to flee before.

"We must go now," Selwyn says.

Varania can feel freedom slipping through her fingers. " _Keili_. Please."

Keili shakes her head, heavy with regrets. "Then, the other mages," and, oh, Varania _loves_ her, but how she wishes Keili could be selfish, just this once. But Keili squares her shoulders and holds out a hand. "Give me the keys."

They already have gathered together such belongings as they could -- clothes and herbs and potions and a little contraband lyrium -- so it is easy to walk out of that chamber into the corridor, but then Keili goes to a door and unlocks it, calling very softly as she does. 

"Janna? It's Keili." She grips her friend's hands and Varania is not jealous, refuses to be so even when Janna kisses Keili's cheek, her face wet and hands shaking. 

They go from door to door. Keili will not stop until they are all opened, but when she says, "The cells," Varania cannot stand it.

"We _can't_. You can't save them all."

Keili is fierce, though, and Varania argues with her long enough that the others join in, and then they are _fighting_ over it while the heartbeats tick away and every nerve in Varania's body screams to her to _run_.

"What about Lily?" Varania demands, sick and frightened, and vibrant with the knowledge that a frightened mage is a reckless mage, a danger to herself and everyone around her, but she is unable to help it. "If you won't for my sake then do it for hers!"

The apprentice is staring up at them, hands latched in Keili's skirts, and Keili looks _ruined_ by this, haggard and wan and Varania hates herself for using the one argument she knows for a certainty will tip Keili into action.

Keili clenches her teeth, and the magic is hot in her now, so close to the surface. But what she says is, "All right. We'll go."

But first she gives the keys to Janna, and the argument that breaks out now is over which exit is the best and Varania feels she might _burst_ in her impatience.

"Keili!"

Keili shakes her head. "We're going," she says, and then, "Let's go."

They do not go alone. Enough of the mages want to stay and fight, or remain in the uncertain shelter Selwyn suggests they might have of the Knight Captain, that their party is not large. It is still too large for Varania's comfort. They go as fast as they can, but too slow for Varania's blood, and she resents every moment they must wait for one of them to catch up.

In the midst of it the Gallows rocks on its foundations, leaning hard to the south. 

Varania falls to her knees. She picks herself up, sets her feet against the tremor, determined. They must run, they must not stop.

Selwyn leads them to a place -- it is one of the teaching rooms, and at first it seems nothing at all, but then Selwyn puts a hand to the wall of it. "Come put some Force, right here," he says, and Varania does it, and the wall slides away, and they are _through_.

A little more Force and it closes again, leaving them in the dark.

A dozen mage-lights leap into being, lighting their dim, desperate faces. They are _free_ \-- but they aren't. They are beneath the Gallows, and the caves down here are complex and strange, and Selwyn goes first, because he says he knows them.

There are so many things skittering in the shadows. Someone falls, and cries out, though they are shushed at once. Keili's apprentice whimpers like the child she is, and Varania cannot fault her. It is terrifying, down in the dark with only the glittering mage-lights and Selwyn's certainty keeping them from the depths.

It feels like forever, down there in the dark, and Keili stops once to gasp, "Maker protect us."

Varania latches a hand in Keili's sleeve, tugging her on down this terrible path Selwyn has found for them.

And then they come out into the sun. Maker, it's like air, and the fresh breeze gusting across her cheek is everything Varania has missed of the world, and it takes an effort not to fall to her knees.

The smell of the sea, the sharp sting of sand on her cheek -- they are out, out on the coast, and there are clouds gathering on the horizon painting them all in dim grey but, oh merciful Maker, they are free.

Free.

They could go anywhere.

Lily is crying and trying to hide it, as Keili soothes her with her hands. Varania looks up into the blankness of Selwyn's face, and he nods.

"We must go on."

He's right.

"Come," Varania says, coaxing. "My love, will you come?"

Keili smooths the tears from Lily's face (Lily is blubbering so many things -- her friends, her things, her Ser Knight, the one who will save her or she must save, it isn't clear) and stands up. She looks out to sea, and something ripples through her, some fear or some want, Varania can't tell.

Then she looks back over their few companions -- a dozen of them, and they are wan in the sunlight, drab and insubstantial beneath the shimmer of banked magic. She shakes herself. Varania can almost see the skin she sheds, insubstantial as it is. "We have to go," she says, firm as a stone. "Come on, Lily. Come with me." She looks up. "Varania."

Varanis cannot deny her.

They go. They angle toward the highway out of Kirkwall, because there is no other way to go. But they go, and for the first time in years Varania feels the weight of decision upon her. They _go_. Where they go is up to them and it may be into danger, but they are free.

The air is bitter and salt, but Varania can't help revelling in every breath. Hers. Theirs. Freedom. It tastes good. She won't let this go.

* * *

Carver shouts again, though his throat has been ripped raw. "To me! Templars, to me!" The weight of his sword is a comfort but out of armour he feels naked as a slug, vulnerable against the weight of fists and stones thrown against him. Stones, because some of the crowd are armed with rocks, and thrown because they are _throwing_ them. A hunk the size of a fist catches him in the shoulder and he swears violently, forcing himself forward. "Come on, you fuckers, get those damned shields up!"

To their credit, his knights are bunched around the apprentices in a tight ring, protecting them with their shields and their bodies, and he's glad of that but still it's too awful for words.

He doesn't know why there's a fucking _mob_ out for their blood, except he probably does, if he's honest with himself in the spaces between terror and anger. They're Templars and mages, and Kirkwall hates both with a passion because the mages are _mages_ and the Templars have thrown their weight around too hard and too long to have any right to the injustice he feels now.

But the mages are also _children_ and he remembers what Rochard said -- nowhere in Thedas is the slaughter of children considered right -- and it burns in him like an inferno. He _will_ get them out of this. They're _his_ , and he has nothing else left.

Any moment now he's going to have to swing his sword to _kill_ instead of intimidate, will have to _butcher_ some fucking Lowtown arsehole to carve a path for them to escape.

He doesn't want to but he will if he has to, because the mob is _thick_ and means to kill them all.

Another rock whizzes past his face and he just _can't_.

"Barker!" Where the fuck is he? "Barker, I need--"

And then he hears someone screaming his name.

He looks up. They're halfway to the pier, ships tugging against their moorings all along the waterfront, and there, on the deck of a grand old thing with a figurehead leaning proudly out to sea, he sees her. She comes into focus in an instant, reaching out over the railing, her bellow loud enough to cut through the tumult. 

"Carver _fucking_ Hawke! Get your pretty arse on board right _now_!"

Isabela. Maker, she's beautiful, scarf gone and her hair spilling in loose dark tangles about her throat. There's a clutch of ... not sailors but Maker-damned _pirates_ gathered at the foot of the ramp leading onto her deck, the lot of them bristling with cutlasses and gaff-hooks, and Isabela beckons him up, her eyes bright and demanding and wonderful.

Maker bless her and bless her. Carver smacks Barker on the shoulder, hard enough to rattle his plate. "Get them up there!"

He forces his way up to the foot of the ramp and twists, setting his feet, sword out, and _fuck_ , from here the mob looks worse than worst because they're all against him in a great angry sea. He can't lose his head now, not even when he sees the line break, two silver helmets going under and a shield coming up to slam a man in rough woolens off his feet.

Maker. Maker _please_. But what he yells is, "Get a fucking hurry on, you blighted gang of whoresons!"

The kids stumble past. One slips, sliding toward the sea, but there's a sailor there to grab them and haul them to their feet, half carrying them up the gangway. Carver sees Timony stop and turn, and he knows everything's about to get worse even before the magic gathers in the Senior Enchanter's hands, flashing bright in the dull sunlight before it flares out, slamming templars and civilians to the ground like toppling dominoes. Carver's behind him so he only catches the backwash, staggering to the edge of the dock, but he can't fall, he can't, so he doesn't, Maker's mercy on him, Maker bless, thanks be.

And then Barker's in his face, wide-eyed and resolute. "Get out of here!"

Carver opens his mouth but Barker just shoves him.

"Get the apprentices _out of here_!" Then he's turned back, his armoured shoulders bright and unassailable, silhouetted against the mob.

He sees the unmistakable shape of Ruvena stepping in on Barker's right. He can hear Isabela yelling something, and then he has a sailor on either side, bearing him along. But still--

He can't leave them.

It's like tearing something, like the rip of skin as the blade goes in, and they bear him up onboard but the moment he's stumbled onto the deck he turns, sheathing his sword, stupidly convinced that his friends will be up after him, that he isn't leaving them behind to save his sorry skin.

The ship lurches and Carver has to grab the railing to keep his feet. He blinks but he can't blink away the sight of the line of Templar armour along the dock's edge, the ramp pulled up, mooring lines sliced away.

His knights, holding back the crowd. He should be _with_ them. 

He's braced himself on the railing before the thought has time to solidify, ready to launch himself over it and into the widening gap of dark ocean, but he's slammed off-balance by something heavy and he hits the railing hard, all the breath knocked out of him.

He twists, betrayed, only to have Isabela snarl in his face, "Don't be _stupid_! There's nothing you can do!"

All he can do is stare at her. It's not too late. He can still ...He tries to tear himself away but her grip on him is a manacle anchoring him to the deck, to the ship, to _her_.

"It's too late," she tells him, jerking his arm hard, her fingers tight and terrible. "We're gone. There's no way--"

The ship twists, treacherous beneath his feet, and he clings to the railing, looking back at Kirkwall smothered in smoke, at his knights already gone small and doll-like as the ship shudders seaward. _His knights_. He can't just--

"There has to be a way," he gasps, but then, in the distance, he sees a cloud of, of he doesn't know what, going up from the Gallows, and then he watches in horror as the side of it _slides into the sea_.

The sound hits him a heartbeat later, a ferocious boom, and the great shockwave of magic spills across him, driving him to his knees. It's like drowning and, for a moment, with his eyes wrenched shut, he thinks he might actually have fallen overboard.

But then it's gone, and the world slams back into his ears.

Isabela is hollering something, but he can't care about it. He hauls himself to his feet, clutching the railing like a lifeline, and he looks.

The shape of the Gallows is so wrong. He hadn't known it could be like that, that it could be sundered so easily, and Isabela is _still_ yelling, but it sounds so far away that he ignores it, dragging his gaze along the waterfront for his _knights_ , Maker protect them every one.

It's too late. He can't make them out anymore, and instead all he can see is the rush of water billowed up in a merciless wall, chasing them out of the harbour.

It's as tall as a city. When it hits it feels like the end of the world.

The ship _shakes_ like a dog trying to throw all of them off her back, and for a sickening moment Carver thinks, _This is it. This is where we go under._

But then she rights herself, and Isabela is striding across the deck, still yelling her tits off, and Carver drags his gaze away from her to look over their wake.

Kirkwall is _gone_ in the distance. They've shot out into the open sea and Kirkwall is growing small, the waves swallowing her up, and he can't bear it, can't bear the widening water driving him away from everything he loves.

The saltwater on his lip might be seaspray and it might not, and he drags a hand over his face, but he _keeps looking_ because he owes Kirkwall, owes his friends this much.

It takes forever, but he cannot look away.

When Isabela comes to him he cannot look at her, his gaze still fixed on the dwindling blemish of Kirkwall as it vanishes into the sea.

"We can't go back," Isabela says, and Carver nods because she's right. She's the Captain of this ship. He should say something to her, but he can't, he's having enough trouble just _breathing_ , salt in his mouth and his lungs and all over him. And then she says, "Look, I don't want to worry you, but," and he twists to stare at her, because that sounds all too ominous.

She smiles, but it isn't her usual smile, too careworn and forced, and then she smooths a hand over his cheek. 

"Sweet thing," she says, but it's rough, and unlike her. "I've got Templars and _children_ in my hold. Best if _you_ find the stones to deal with them, mister Knight Templar."

Oh. Of course. He glances back again, and then wrenches himself away from the merciless comfort of the railing to Deal With It.

The apprentices are all somewhere on a scale between delighted and terrified, and he does his best to soothe them, down in the dark beneath the deck. They seem, strangely, pleased to see him, and so are such of his knights as made it onboard with him. Alistair, for a mercy, and Maglene, and Moira too, the others gathered around them like uncertain lumps of steel. He remembers his last sea-journey, and instructs all of them to take their armour off -- no need to keep it on aboard, and the danger of one of them falling over and sliding heavy-weighted into the depths is too clear for him not to warn them.

They seem dubious but do as they're told, and then Carver instructs them to take good care of the apprentices. "Don't leave any of them alone," he says, knowing how the apprentices will hate this, but knowing, also, that this is a fucking _pirate_ ship, and that they are not paying customers. (He doesn't have to worry about his knights, surely, not these knights, it will be fine, won't it?)

Alistair nods, and asks very politely if Carver needs anything.

Carver shakes his head. He doesn't.

It isn't until one of the apprentices breaks down in tears at the sight of him that Carver remembers something is wrong with his face.

He goes back up on deck, finds Isabela, and tucks his hands behind his back to report, because it feels right. He doesn't know how else to do this, and if he stops even for a heartbeat he knows he'll come to pieces with the knowledge of how deeply he has failed, well, everyone.

Isabela grabs his arm, pushing him along the deck and shoving him into a cabin, and then she shuts the door, leaning up on the inside of it with her arms folded beneath her breasts.

It must be _her_ cabin, he thinks when he takes it in. It's a nice cabin, better than any berth he's ever seen shipboard. The journey from Highever to Kirkwall had been dingy, spent largely in the dankness of a stinking hold, and on his way to Starkhaven he'd been bunked in with Sebastian and Tristram, which hadn't been _bad_ strictly, but this? He doesn't have it in him to tell her how nice it is in here but he can't ignore the artisanship in the furnishings, the comfort of a full bed, rich with beautiful linens, how everything is padded with silks and comfortable. A captain's cabin, and lush with it, and he envies Isabela a little, despite everything.

"I told my crew you'd be sleeping in here with me," she says, examining her nails, still leaned up against the door. "In trade for your passage, you understand."

Carver doesn't, until he does. "So, I'm servicing you, is that it?" It seems beyond strange that anyone would think she'd have to trade _him_ for that. But. If she demands it of him he'll do whatever she wants, he thinks, realising that he has no coin, nothing to pay her for the food and transport of two dozen children and a half-dozen templars. Maker, he'd give her anything she asked, but he has nothing. So.

She smiles, tipping her head up against the door, and she looks so ... still his friend. "That's what I'm _telling_ people. But I've no interest in making you do things against your will."

She's beautiful, and he _has_ wanted her, for years. Had her, for one night, when she'd taken pity on him, he supposes. It can't be too hard to do whatever she wants now. "I'm willing," he says, though it feels so far away, past the terrible deadness suffusing him. Still, rub him right and he won't be able to help himself, so he unhitches his sword, sits down on the bed to take off his boots, and looks up at her, waiting.

She makes a face. "I don't think you really want that, puppy." 

"Doesn't matter what I want," he says, meaning it but the roll of her eyes says exactly what she thinks of _that_. "No, I mean ... you're..."

"It's all right," and her smile is warm and a little sad, but she comes over, sitting down at his side and touching his cheek with one weathered hand. "My _dear_. Stay with me tonight, when we're both a little heartbroken."

He doesn't know what she means by it, but he curls down in the bed with her, and it's okay, she doesn't mind him or anything he does there, just holds onto him and says, "Shhh, sweet thing. It's all right," and everything is wrong but this place is okay. He'll be okay. Maker... 

He has to be.


	47. Chapter 47

This forest. Anders has never forgotten it, never forgotten the feel of an axe-handle in his palms and his father's voice, instructing him in how to swing the thing, how to make the blade cut and not bite, how to take the force of the blow in his shoulders and not his hands. (His father, who ... but he doesn't want to think about it, wants to think of nothing.)

It's easy now, the repetitive swing of an axe, and he knows it achieves nothing, that every tree he fells only makes room for two more, but it feels good to try. He can never clear this forest but that's good too, isn't it? This will always be here for him, no matter what he does to it.

He swings. He cuts. He fells. One tree and then another, and another, and it makes no difference but it feels like something, when he so rarely feels like he can do anything anymore.

It's different now, though. Something has changed, something significant. The clouds overhead are still puffy and white, still heavy, but there's something missing. He shakes the feeling off, unsure of what it might mean, but still he feels ... light. Weightless, in this place, suffused with lightness instead. The colours come up bright blue and pink and purple, and he breathes out, large with it, and his self spools out like thread over the snow-cloaked mountainside. He can feel something there, or rather _nothing_ where there had used to be something.

He feels free.

He stops, looks back, and wonders. There are no walls here, nothing to keep him in, nothing to stop him from ... from what? What walls? They're gone now, in any case, and he expands like a rib-cage filled with breath, into the space. It seems infinite in its scope, like he could pour himself out into it forever, growing thin and indistinct within it, and he hauls himself back in, afraid of what might happen if he lets go completely.

Something tugs at him. A fine gold chain, lodged in his breast. Perhaps it should frighten him but he finds it does not. He touches it and it seems strong, despite the fineness of it, and it tugs him.

It wants something. Anders wonders what, and then it tugs again, lodged deep, and inexorable in its strength.

He can't resist it. He tries, but it feels worse to resist, so he stops trying and then, with a rush like the slam of great dark wings, it tugs him off his feet and up, through the darkening sky, past stars like bright beacons, into infinite blackness.

He has enough time to be frightened (infinite dark, total shadow, Maker protect him, Andraste's dirty knickers, what is--) before he breaches into light bright enough to break him.

It _hurts_. It hurts his _soul_. And then it stops hurting, replaced instead by ordinary hurts -- the ache of worn muscle, of bruises, and the pressure of fur-covered chainmail beneath his shoulder.

"Ow," he says. The light goes out, resolves into a dimness he cannot deny and then the world tips. He hits the floor, crashes into it hard, and this is palpably worse. " _Ow_ ," he says again, with some feeling this time. "What--?"

"Anders!"

He knows that voice, and when she leans down into his face he can feel her at the other end of the golden chain, the anchor to his wanderlust, and it's so good he wants to weep.

She's crying. She's trying not to, he can see it (blinking up into the tattooed lines of her face) but the tears keep coming and she can't seem to stop. "Oh, Anders ... I knew, I _knew_!"

Anders needs a moment, but it seems he won't get it, so he forces a hand up to touch her cheek. "Merrill. Fuck, _Merrill_ ," and then he remembers.

Oh holy Maker, he remembers _everything_.

Karl. Oh, Andraste, _Karl._ So much regret, and the weight of a knife.

Hawke. The scent of green things deep underground. Wine and lyrium and _Hawke_. 

A soft place. A welcome he had never expected. Smooth sheets and soft pillows and Hawke in amongst them, smiling up at him bright as the sun.

Merrill, her scent green and living, in a way Hawke had never been, looking at him in a way Hawke never did, accepting him just as he is, in a way that--

Justice 

Maker forgive him they had never meant it to but it did, they did, and 

everything was wrong all at once 

nothing went right between them, it was all _wrong_.

Everything he did wrong. Everything wrong, but still--

(solona I'm sorry, I never meant to)

_Justice._ And Hawke.

Oh, Maker.

"Hawke," he says, but as soon as the word leaves his mouth he regrets it. Merrill jerks away from him, stricken, and all he wants is to take that look from her face. "No, Merrill, I--"

"Hawke's gone." She says it so simply, but then she scrubs at her cheek, rubbing away the tears and leaving only dirt and muck behind. Maker, she's beautiful. And hurt and upset, and Anders _cannot_ allow her to be so.

"It's okay," he tells her, but the indignant look she gives him dries the rest of it in his throat.

"It _isn't_."

She looks over her shoulder, and he looks after her,seeing only a magelight and dim stone walls and rubble, two Templars on the floor. They look dead, and he reaches out automatically, seeking their life-force, and the effort would have felled him if he was not already on the ground.

Dizzy, he tries to sort through it. The Templars are alive, but they are both very dim, and he barely has mana enough to search them out, not nearly enough to Heal them. If he wanted to. If that was a thing he would do, now.

They're Templars. Anders hates them on principle, but ...

They're injured. Dying. Maker, what happened?

"Hawke's in here somewhere," Merrill says, standing up and swiping her fingers over her face. They leave streaks, some of them bloody. She doesn't seem to care. "I lost them. I was following, but ... they tore down the wall."

It takes him a moment. _They_. Hawke and Justice. He remembers now the feel of Justice leaving him, the solid weight of loss that smothered him then, carrying him under. But he remembers also how Justice had led him to this point, and how he'd hated it every step of the way.

And now, he feels.

Maker, he'd forgotten how it felt to _feel_ about something, and the rush of it is overwhelming.

He feels everything.

He loves Hawke. No, maybe not. He _loved_ Hawke, loved every stupid twist of his hands, loved his smile, and his laughter. But now? The weight of years slams into him and it takes his breath away.

Hawke. Justice. _Merrill_.

And here she is, standing over him with all the ferocity of a mabari. Oh, he _feels_ , and feels stupid for not having known it before.

"We don't need Hawke," he says, and the words flutter against him, powerful and right. "Merrill, we can _go_."

She shakes her head, and the dimness of the magelight casts strange shadows over her face. "We can't. I have to find him. I need," and she frowns, severe in the half-light. "You need your memories back."

What memories? Nothing seems missing. "I don't," he tells her, shoving himself up on one elbow, not quite ready to stand. Almost, but ... "I remember."

"Not everything," she says, and the shape of her shoulders makes him want to get up, go to her, pull her into an embrace he has never given her in the waking world. He tries, fails, and settles for kneeling at her feet.

"I think I remember a lot."

She casts a glance at him that should hurt more than it does. "You can't. When we ... when Hawke and I pulled the demon out of Danarius we took everything important with it. I _won't_ let you go the same way."

It's sweet, he thinks, though misguided. He does remember -- every moment, every day since he met her. He's been ... oh, so awful, but ... now here she is, caring for him when he deserves ... Maker, he deserves worse than death in a small cold room with her.

But what he says is, "Merrill, I remember everything."

"Do you?"

He nods, forcing himself to his feet. They're all right now, no longer a shaky mess at the ends of his shaky legs, and he reaches for her, fingers latching in her sleeve. "I remember _you_."

And her kindness, that he never deserved. Does not deserve now. Maker, how he--

She looks at him and he _feels_ it. Maker, how could he ever have let it slide?

He curls his fingers around her wrist, feeling the pulse of her heart there and wishing she could feel his the same way. And maybe she does, maybe... 

"I'm sorry," she says, but he doesn't know why. "I'm so _sorry_."

"No need." He tries to smile -- smiles had used to come easy, had used to _work_ , but this time all it does is make her look _worse_ , and he does not want that.

"I failed you."

"We're doing okay, aren't we?"

"No!" She twists, staring about her, and Anders has to look. They're in this small room, caved in at either end, all the rubble on the floor. It's like they're in a cavern, a tiny place deep underground, and he hates being trapped, but he tries very hard not to care because they are in it _together_ , and he would not want to be trapped with anyone else. "We need to get _out_."

It seems simple. "Then let's get out."

He says it not understanding its significance, just thinking, _If I had my mana then we could work together to make an exit,_ but Merrill gives him such a wounded look, as if he's asking too much of her. "Anders." It sounds sweet in her mouth, and he cannot hate it or himself for this. But then she says, " _Anders_ ," and there's a knife in her hand, the blade accusingly sharp. "Can you do nothing for them?"

It takes him a heartbeat to realise she means the Templars trapped in with them. But he shakes his head. "I can't."

"And they'll die without it, anyway?"

It sounds momentous, but Anders has to tell her. "Yes. Any moment, really." 

"All right."

He doesn't understand why she cares, right up until she twists the knife to point, and one of the Templars bursts at the seams, blood spilling like water from a sieve, and then the other does the same.

Because. Merrill is a blood mage, and he _knows_ she's never sacrificed an innocent before but ... they're Templars, and neither one of them innocent.

It's painfully neat. And so messy. Anders cannot help the cry of dismay that comes up out of his throat, but then Merrill has reached for his hand, her eyes _glowing_ with magic, and she says. "It's all right. Just--"

She throws out a hand, and the wall comes away with it. Not just the wall, the rest of the building slides off into the sea. The bright light pouring in makes him blink, a hand gone up to shield himself from it, and then he makes himself stare because ... the whole _side of the Gallows has slid into the sea_.

It's glorious, and terrifying.

And not without consequences. The world rocks, the sea rushes up to overtake them but Merrill -- bright with mana and willful too -- holds up her hand and enough of the onrushing water stills for Anders' heart to restart its beating. Holy ... 

Merrill casts again and the sea firms up, becomes icily solid, and then she tugs him out into it, into the brine-kissed air. "Come on!"

He stumbles along behind, because he has no choice but also ... also he must. Freedom. Maker, he'd fled the Circle in Ferelden enough times to remember the feel of new air on his face, the sting of salt, the wonderment of it all. But never had he ever run from a place like the Gallows into the burning brightness of a Kirkwall sun.

Maker, it's beautiful.

And they only had to kill two templars to do it.

The ice beneath his feet is slippery, but he does not fall, dragged along by this Merrill, by _his_ Merrill, and then they are scrambling up onto the sand and Anders cannot help but laugh because they are _free_ , and he is free of Justice, and free of Hawke and his terrible loving constraints.

He wants to collapse onto the sand and pull it to his mouth, kiss every grain of it, but instead he reaches for her again. " _Merrill!_ "

She makes a high noise, but then she lays a hand on his spine and it feels like ...

"Are you all right, lethallin?""

"I'm _fine_."

He looks back, sees the waters gone crazy around the empty hole along the side of the Gallows, the ice bridge melted away, and he thinks, _We should have got the other mages out, we should have, should have..._

Maybe they could have. Maybe not. Maybe it would have been pointless.

But now, with the sun bearing down on them, and the salt of the wind drying on their lips, he cannot feel anything except grateful.

"Come on," Merrill says, tugging at his hand. He should be angry with her. Blood magic, and she _killed_ those Templars to get them out, sacrificed in a way he feels certain she has never done before.

Anders finds his feet, but-- “Andraste’s _Aunt_!” He twists around, appalled in his realisation, staring back at the Kirkwall-under-water in the distance. “Pawsha. Oh … Merrill, we have to--”

“I know,” she says tersely. “ _An_ ders. We’ve left worse than that behind. We have to go.”

“Worse than … she’ll hang around for days, she'll _starve_ \--”

“There are seven revenants in clay jars on a shelf in my bedroom,” she tells him, and there is something … she never lies, but even if she did she isn’t lying now. “If one of them breaks, I don’t know … If I could, I'd go back for _that_. But we can’t. We have to _go_.”

She's right. He can't deny it. But she's weeping again, tears streaming down her face, and all he can do is touch her cheek and hope she will allow it.

She does. He cups his hands beneath her jaw, and thinks, _Maker, please._

She lets him, turning her face up to look at him, sad and regretful and, oh, lonely.

He won't let her be lonely.

"Merrill," he says again, and his voice breaks on it. "Oh, Merrill, please," and he kisses her mouth. "Please don't cry."

"You do remember," she says, but her throat is thick with tears, and then, "Anders, I'm so _sorry_ ," and he can't bear it.

"Don't, don't." He kisses her again, and the wonderful thrill of it is enough to make him feel like he's losing his mind, or as much of it as he has left. "Please, don't. You were wonderful, you _are_ wonderful, never let anyone tell you different."

She curls up against his shoulder and he holds on to her because he has nothing else, and all he wants is to stay.

When they go Anders tucks an arm around her to pull her close as they stumble up the from the shore and into the scrubby trees. She's done so much for him, and he is grateful. 

But. That isn't why he stays.

* * *

Sebastian has been quiet since they left Kirkwall. He lets Fenris lead him, nods when required, shakes his head when required, but he has been like a man dead, all along the road, and when they make camp near dusk he folds up on the ground, a strings-cut puppet, sitting and staring at nothing.

It is not nothing, Fenris knows. There are scenes playing out behind his eyes that transfix him, and Fenris is reluctant to interrupt him in his misery. His own misery is enough. He dares not think too long, or he will remember what Sebastian said -- _I'm not sure if he lives, or no._ If Carver is dead...

If Carver is dead then he is dead, and Fenris can do nothing for him.

It's too much to think on, and so Fenris does not, pours himself into the task of making camp, and does not allow himself to hope for anything.

They are not alone in their exodus, and shortly after Fenris has made a fire and Orana has begun to heat water over it, another party approaches them from the road.

Fenris is on alert, so he intercepts them before they can come too close. "Greetings," he says, because he knows no other way.

"Greetings to you, serrah."

They are a family, he thinks, two women and a man and a child with her hair in beribboned braids. It is one of the women who answers him, an older woman with grey at her temples, and they are all of them elves, in the much-mended garb of the alienage.

The older woman fixes him with a needy look. "You have a priest there."

Fenris does not look over his shoulder, well aware of Sebastian sitting blank and silent within the halo of the fire. "We do."

"We would be grateful of his blessing. Not for me," as though it would make a difference, "but for Enna. She's frightened," she adds, and Fenris understands from the glance of her eyes that she means the little girl. Such a little girl, not much older than Tully (who has come up behind and clutches now at Fenris' leg. He is quiet for once, and Fenris would worry if not for the fact that he is grateful and preoccupied.)

"I can ask of him," Fenris tells the stranger, though he does not have much hope of it.

"We have food," the woman offers, looking desperate. "We are willing to share."

Orana has packed food enough for all of them, but Fenris appreciates the offer. "I will ask of him," he says again, and he nods to her before going back, Tully in tow, to touch Sebastian on the shoulder.

Sebastian shudders and does not look up.

"There are penitents," Fenris says, "seeking the blessing of a priest."

His priest shifts then, coming up onto his knees with a creaky sigh, and then he gets his feet under him, casting out to find their visitors.

"As the Maker wills," he says, and goes to them.

Fenris busies himself by the fire, doing whatever Orana wants but keeping half an eye on Sebastian and half of one on Tully, who is still clinging to his side and watching their visitors avidly.

"All right, little bean?"

Tully tips his head against Fenris' thigh. "All right. And you, uncle?"

"I am well enough."

Tully seems to accept this, but still he clings and stares, and it is not only the strangers that he stares at, but the road, the trees, the shadows all around. Fenris realises -- the shock of it is a sudden lurch in his gut -- that Tully has never before been outside of Kirkwall, has never sat in the dirt beside a road, never eaten bread warmed at a campfire. Tully is not fussy, Orana has said, but he has never before been so far from their house and Fenris worries. He worries about Sebastian, and Tully, and Orana though Orana is all herself and competent in ways Fenris had not expected and is not himself competent.

She sends him to dig out a latrine -- he does as she says, watching Sebastian all the while.

Tully baulks at the hole Fenris has dug for their waste, but with a little encouragement he goes in it all the same.

When Fenris leads Tully back to their small camp he finds it expanded -- Sebastian has invited the strangers to join with them. Fenris disagrees with this (they could be thieves, could be murderers, could be-- but they do not seem so). Still, Tully and Enna make friends very easily, playing a game in the dirt that involves the precise placement of sticks. Fenris suspects they have made it up between them, but they seem engaged by it, all the same.

The older woman is called Ren, and she comes up on Fenris' side to ask of him things he does not want to answer: who are they? where are they going? what is their plan? 

Do they go to Starkhaven?

Fenris thinks, _No,_ but then, _Perhaps._

He sees Sebastian stir in his place by the fire, and he waits. All of them wait on the single human in their midst, until Sebastian says, "We _could_ go to Starkhaven."

It is the most Fenris has had from him since he drew Sebastian away from the rubble of the Chantry. It is not a terrible idea. Though, it is very far and dangerous to go on foot to Starkhaven. Fenris knows this because Isabela told him so, long ago. Oh, Isabela ... but they have fled, now, and she is far away.

How he wishes for her wisdom now.

But. He says, "Can we get there? The mountains are formidable."

Sebastian looks up, his eyes bright with reflected firelight, aquamarine and human. "I know of a pass we could take through the mountains."

It seems Maker-sent. "Is it safe?" Fenris asks, thinking of Tully playing at sticks with Enna beside the fire. 

"Safer than the sea." Sebastian looks out across the dark. The sun has vanished, and they are hemmed-in by firelight, squatting in a tiny oasis around the fire. "If we went there ..." Sebastian trails off, still staring into the night. Fenris watches him, concerned for him, and so he sees the moment where Sebastian's resolve shifts. "I couldn't go with you to Starkhaven city. Only to her borders. And then ... well. 'Then' is a long way off."

"Do they treat well with elves in Starkhaven, messere?" Ren asks, and Fenris hates the soft subservience in her voice, wants to tell her, 'Sebastian is not like the humans you have known, there is no need,' but it feels flimsy.

"Better than Kirkwall," Sebastian says, and Fenris cannot ignore the hope that flares in Ren's face, in the faces of her son and her daughter at the word of a priest given to them.

He hopes it is true, for their sake. And, oh, he hopes it is true for _Tully_.

When they make their beds Fenris curls up beside Orana and Tully on a thin blanket on the ground, and lifts a hand to beckon Sebastian down.

"Come here," he says, and Sebastian hesitates only a moment before he complies, lying down by Fenris' side and turning away. Fenris lines his back to Sebastian, opens his arms for Tully to crawl up to him, one arm gone over to cover Orana's shoulder, and listens to Tully's night-babble until the little boy falls asleep.

All he has now are his thoughts, and Carver may be dead. He may not, he may, he may not. Fenris thinks, _Please, Maker._ He knows, though, that the Maker does not listen to him.

They should have set a guard. They had not, so Fenris keeps guard for them, eyes open for as long as he can. But it has been a long day and it is a long night, and he jerks awake when Sebastian pulls away from him, somewhere near dawn.

"Shhh," Sebastian says, running a hand over Fenris' bicep. "I'll make up the fire, and tea."

Fenris blinks into the grey, and then he goes under again, smothered by sleep.

He wakes for tea and Sebastian's face, more animated than he has been since--

"I have an idea," Sebastian says quietly, "regarding Starkhaven."

Fenris hears him out, sipping rough tea out of a rough cup, reclined on his elbows with Tully still using his belly for a pillow.

"I'll get you as close to the city as I can. I know the best way to approach it. And there are farms and homesteads along the way where I can get you something. Supplies, or, or whatever you need." He seems resolute, and it is welcome in its contrast to how _low_ he has been, how flat. "I will get you close before I..."

"Before what?" Fenris sits up, tipping Tully from his lap into the warm space beside his mother, heart hammering because this sounds as though Sebastian means to abandon them. "Before you go?"

"Yes," Sebastian says, eyes gone hollow as an empty gourd.

No. No, he cannot _leave_ them. But. "Where will you go?"

"I have no idea." He shakes his head, holding his own cup in both hands to muse over it. "If you have advice--"

"Come with us." Fenris has no right ... except he feels that he _does_. They came this way because of Sebastian, are going on this way _for_ Sebastian, and they need him, need the shelter of a human against whatever comes next. "Do not abandon us."

Sebastian startles, and his eyes fix on Fenris in a way they have not since they left Kirkwall. Today. It was only today. How could it feel so long?

" _Sebastian_ ," he says, meaning more than he can say and willing Sebastian to understand. "I beg of you. Do not leave us so easily." _You are the only friend I have left._

Sebastian seems torn, though Fenris does not know what it is that tears him. And then -- because he is the man Fenris has believed him to be almost as long as they have known one another -- he nods, all over serious. "As you wish. I _will_ not abandon you."

"Good." Fenris drinks down his rough tea and hands the cup back. "Remember your promise, when things become difficult."

Because they will, he knows it. Nothing goes smooth, and there is _Tully_ to worry about, and Fenris ... he knows few things, he thinks, but he knows that without Sebastian everything will be so much worse than it could be _with_ him.

Sebastian tips the empty cup up onto the rocks beside the dying coals, to dry out. "I won't abandon you, unless I have no other recourse. I swear it."

It's enough. It must be.

When the sun rises full above the horizon, there are others on the road. The bulk of them gather up behind Sebastian and Fenris' party. Some seek absolution. Some want direction. Some are simply fleeing, and see in them the safety of numbers.

Whatever the reason, they gather behind, day by day, and Fenris does not know what to do with them. He tries to ignore them, but it becomes impossible. There are many elves, and humans too. A trio of dwarves. One of the Tal-Vashoth, dragging a burden of wheat-flour and dried meat that he is reluctant to share -- until he gets Fenris' word that they will pool provisions alike, after which he makes free with it. And all of them, repeating the idea that they go to Starkhaven, and that there will be safety there.

Sebastian welcomes them all, though he does not seem to understand the significance of it.

Fenris tries his best but it is beyond him, and he has Tully and Orana and _Sebastian_ to worry over. The others keep coming to him, as though he is in any way an authority, and they ask him so many things: how to make camp; how to dig waste-ditches; how to share water; how to treat an injury.

"We cannot take them all," Fenris says, though he thinks--

Sebastian regards him with a flat, human gaze. "Who would we dare to leave behind?"

None of them, and Fenris knows it, and he curses Sebastian for his logic and his kind heart. 

Sebastian nods, turning to the mountains rising on the skyline. "Come. We can make good time before nightfall."

Fenris follows him. There is no other choice he is willing to make.


	48. Chapter 48

On the third day, Isabela kicks him out of her cabin.

Carver can't quite comprehend what's going on. "What--"

"I need some space, puppy," she says, and she winks at him, shoving a bundle of blankets at his chest. "Just go find a bunk."

"Fine," he grouses. Is it because he's not riding her? He could do it, if she wanted, if his hands weren't shaking so bad. Still, he goes below and finds himself a spot to kip down, in the space the knights have made for the apprentices. 

It's dank down there, smells terrible, but the kids have stuck mage-lights up along the planking, shedding blue light over their dirty faces. He should probably tell them off for that, unauthorised magic and all, but he can't bring himself to do it. They're being _so good_ , so far. They all look up to him with this tense excitement, as if this is a marvellous adventure. It isn't, and he should probably tell them that too, but he can't. Better excited than frightened. Right? Right.

The bit with Isabela makes sense in the evening when he sees her up on the foredeck with Ser Moira, touching her arm very gently and leaning in to whisper something that has Moira all flustered. And then Isabela wraps her fingers around Moira's wrist and tugs, and Carver looks away from the sight of his friend _seducing_ one of his knights.

That's another thing he should say something about, but can't. Moira's a grown woman. She can make her own choices. And from the look of things she's certainly not unwilling.

The two of them disappear (indiscreetly) into the Captain's cabin, and Carver resolves to stay the hell away from there in case he hears something he can't ever unhear.

Alistair clears his throat. "We-ell. That's certainly ... something." He eyes Carver sidelong, sprawled down on the deck beside him. "Er ... I suppose you'd like a drink?"

All of them have a rum ration -- Carver had to stop Isabela from giving the apprentices a half-ration of their own, the thought of drunken accidental magic onboard a ship too horrible to contemplate -- and Alistair has been good with his, offers it up now for Carver to take if he wants.

Carver shakes his head. "I'm good." If Alistair had lyrium ... no. He's fine. He'll be _fine_.

(He's not fine, and he knows it, but he keeps telling himself that if he can just get them to Starkhaven or, fuck, to Wycome, then he'll take care of the shakes, the sick clench low in his gut. Not like he has any other option.)

Alistair seems doubtful, but he drinks his rum, watching Carver over the rim of his cup. He's a good man, Alistair, and he'd make a good knight, if he gave one single fuck about it. And of course he doesn't. That would have made everything so much easier, so it can't actually happen. That would be too easy.

Sometimes, Carver thinks, it's as though the Maker is deliberately testing him. But he shutters the thought away, because that's the kind of thing that sends Templars crazy. Next he'll be hearing voices.

And he does, sometimes, murmurs in the dark. Never anything distinct, just whispers on the edge of hearing. His name, mostly. Horrid criticisms -- _This is all your fault,_ or, _Is this the best you can do?_ or, _What would your mother think of you now?_ or, _Your brother's dead and you might as well have killed him yourself_ . He ignores it as best he can, but between the murmuring and the dark flickers in the corners of his vision (worse in the eye that's still blurry, because he can't see them right) he feels like he's losing his mind.

"How far _is_ it to Starkhaven?" Alistair asks, sounding far too innocent for it to be innocent at all.

Carver shrugs, trying to rid himself of the itch between his shoulderblades. "It was a sevenday to Wycome, last time. We had good weather, though. Then another up the river. If we can find a barge." 

Put like that it seems impossible. A fortnight at best, and the tickle of lyrium fingers down his spine makes him shudder. He's not going to make it. He needs to do some things before he's useless, needs to say some things, put things in order.

He has just over a dozen knights -- enough for one-and-a-bit squads -- and he needs to put someone in charge. It won't be Alistair (a recruit), nor Maglene (a junior), and he doesn't trust any of the rest. What he'd give now for Barker, or Rue, or Stesha. He has Moira instead, and she's too busy fucking around with a damn _pirate_ to take orders from him, and _Maker_ it's hard enough to think straight without having to think hard at all.

"Okay," he says, squeezing his eyes shut against the dark flecks that keep threatening him. He takes a breath. "Okay. I need you to do something for me."

Alistair listens, but his eyes go very wide, and he shakes his head before Carver's even done. "That won't be necessary, ser."

"But if it is," Carver insists, because Alistair needs to fucking do what he's told for once instead of bucking orders just because he doesn't agree with them. "I need to know I can rely on you."

"It won't be necessary," Alistair says, as if he's fucking sure, but then he adds, "I'll get some rope, though, just in case."

Carver breathes out, relieved. At least Alistair won't let him become a threat. "Good. Thanks."

Alistair's smile is wonky, not quite right. Carver wonders if he'll really do it, when push comes to shove, wonders if he'll have the balls to truss up his commanding officer and knot him to the mast if he has to. If it becomes necessary.

And then Alistair comes up in the morning after breakfast (while Carver is doing his best not to claw the skin off his wrists) with Maglene in tow. "Ser?"

Carver glares at them both. He's trying to get some peace and quiet, but there's nowhere to go on a ship at sea, and he's sat himself down by the stern, out of the way. Not like he can hide. "What is it?"

Maglene looks grim. She glances from Alistair to Carver, and then with a huff she holds out a hand.

There's a single phial of lyrium in it, bright and blue and glittering in the sunlight.

Carver feels his mouth go dry. Somehow he doesn't reach for it. _Maker, give me strength._

"I've pooled everyone's lyrium, ser," she says, brisk and businesslike. "We'll be on half rations to Wycome, but we'll live." She pushes the phial at him, her mouth turned down. "Make it last, if you can."

Carver wants to tell her no, but he can't, he's too thirsty for it. And his hands shake bad enough he's afraid to take it from her in case it spills from his grasp into the sea. "I--"

"Want me to mix a bit with some rum, ser? Might go further, that way." Alistair says it easily, as if it means nothing, and Carver is so grateful he can barely speak.

"Yeah," he manages, and then Alistair fetches out a cup and some rum, and hands him the worst cocktail he's ever had.

And the best. The lyrium is like starlight, glittering all the way down his throat, and the instant relief is like plunging into a cool fresh lake on a summer's day.

Maker, he hates it. And, well, he doesn't. _Fenris was right,_ he thinks, dizzy with it after so long. _It really is a poison._

When he opens his eyes Alistair has gone, but Maglene is sat down on the decking, deliberately not watching him, the half-full phial cradled in her lap. Carver doesn't say anything to her, just leans back and lets the lyrium take him.

Eventually -- "You don't have to stay, Ser Maglene."

"I do my duty, ser."

"It's not your duty to babysit me through a bloody lyrium dose," he grumbles, fuzzy and overwhelmed. Everything feels so much more with lyrium in him, the wind on his face, the salt on his lip, the rise and roll of the ship beneath. Maker, it's good and it's terrible, and he's done this to himself all by _himself_. His mother really wouldn't be proud of him right now, if she had ever been.

"I think it is," Maglene says quietly. She turns, fixing him with a look sharp as a blade. "And it's your duty, ser, to take care of yourself. For those in your care, and under your command."

"Are you telling me my fucking duty, Ser Maglene?" He'd be angry, if he could, but it's hard right now when he feels right for the first time in days, finally clear-headed, though he knows he's anything but.

She lifts her chin. "Only because it seems like you need it, Knight Lieutenant."

That's too much. He can't help laughing, and then he can't stop laughing, not even when it turns sour, the wrack of it burning in his chest. When he finally runs down he wipes a hand over his eyes, and tries to pretend he's fine. "Maker, Maglene. Where did I go right with you?"

For a little while she does not answer, and then-- "You said I might be great one day," she says, a 'ser' conspicuously missing. "It made me curious. I wanted to find out if you were right."

"And prove me wrong?"

She snorts, kicking out a foot to lay her leg flat on the deck. "Only by outstripping your expectations. Great? I can do better than great."

It makes him smile. "Good. I'd like to see you try."

Her eyes are dark and unreadable. "Then you will have to live to see it. Ser." She holds out the phial, watching him carefully. "Can I trust you with this? Or would it be best if I kept it for now?"

Can she? It would undermine his authority to admit, but he isn't sure she can. "Just hang on to it until I need it," he says, and she nods, tucking it into a pouch. "Thank-you," he adds, very, very grateful. He couldn't have done it himself, pooled the lyrium and made the hard decisions, not deep in it as he has been since they locked him in that cell. He should have. That was his _job_ , not something to leave to a junior knight and, dammit, Alistair's just a _recruit_.

But Maglene is _his_ knight, and so she nods, turning away to examine the clouds. "It is my duty, ser," she says, but to Carver it sounds like 'you're welcome'.

* * *

On the fifth day a storm blows up out of the sea, and they're all stuffed below decks while Isabela strides about bellowing into the wind. It's (hah) harrowing, and the kids cluster together in a damp huddle, magic billowing through them with every lurch of the ship. The knights try to keep them under control, siphoning off the excess magic when they have to. They're lucky, really, that no-one flares up too badly -- there's an incident with some ice, but no fire (everyone's worst nightmare aboard ship) and when the storm clears they all go shakily back up on deck to breathe in the briny air and blink at the fresh-washed sky. The kids go crazy, bouncing around like dry corn kernels in a skillet. Isabela tolerates it poorly, but at least she lets them blow off some steam.

They've lost a day, she says to him, quietly where no-one can hear. That makes them still two days out from Wycome, and Carver's acutely aware of the dwindling stock of lyrium. He allows Isabela to double the rum ration for the knights, knowing it can't stop the cravings, just ease them a little. He has them doing exercises, the basic meditations and contemplations he'd hated so much as a recruit, but they're a useful distraction, and the last thing he needs is a gang of mad templars tearing the place apart.

He hopes he won't be the first to go.

* * *

On the seventh day, Carver takes his ragged band of knights and children down the gangplank, so glad of the docks he could get down and kiss them.

He doesn't, quite, just stumbles about trying to find his legs again. 

Isabela kisses him goodbye, but the kiss she gives Moira is much more involved. Moira's stopped blushing about it by now, though there's colour in her cheeks when she finally pulls away. Isabela murmurs something to her, and the look on Moira's face is too much for Carver to see. He turns away, giving them back a little privacy, thinking, _Well, this is it._

When Moira comes down her expression is tense and sorrowful, and Carver's surprised she's come down at all.

"Thought we might lose you to pirates, Ser Moira," he says, meaning it for a joke, but he regrets it at once because, Maker, Moira's _face_.

"I'm still a Templar," she says, but there's such reluctance in it. Carver tries not to see her look back, tries to ignore all the regret painted over her, and does not tell her it's for the best, where Isabela's concerned. It's not for him to say.

* * *

On the eighth day they get a barge, but they lose Nellie and Tamika.

One moment they're there, standing quietly at the edge of the gathered apprentices, and the next time Carver looks he doesn't even notice they're gone. It isn't until they're actually on the barge and he goes for a headcount that he comes up two short and realises what's happened.

"Fuck! We have to go back," he says, thinking -- two girls, alone in a strange city. Anything could happen to them. He can't just let it.

But the barge is leaving and Moira shakes her head. "Those two? They can take care of themselves. Oh, come on, Hawke," she says, rolling her eyes. "Tammy grew up in Darktown. And Nellie's a tough little bitch, when she's pushed. You can't go back for them, anyway," she adds, jerking her chin at the activity on deck. "Miss the boat and we'll never get this lot to Stakhaven."

She's right, but it burns. Carver has to leave them behind, though it feels like just another failure.

* * *

On the thirteenth day they run out of lyrium. Carver had wheedled some out of the Chantry in Wycome, and barely enough coin for their passage up-river, but it's not enough. He's been doing his best to get by on sips and sniffs, and the rest ... Moira's worst, after him, only because she's been knighted the longest and never had to go without. The junior knights are okay, mostly, though they're twitchy. Alistair's the only one who won't go under eventually.

Carver spends a lot of time praying, and waiting. The praying is painfully pointless, because he's convinced there's no-one listening, and yet he can't stop _hoping_ , but for what? A crate of lyrium to just fall into his lap? Fuck, he'd settle for a phial of it, just enough to go around a sip apiece.

There's no rum this time, nothing to make for a distraction, and Carver watches the shake of his hands get worse, until he can't be certain he can still hold his sword. (He tries drawing it, back behind the cargo bales where no-one can see, and his relief when it comes free in one smooth arc is almost enough to make him weep.)

Maglene assures him the knights will be fine, but he can see them, hunching and sweating and staring into the distance. He tells Alistair again, _You have to be ready,_ and this time when Alistair insists that it won't be necessary he doesn't sound so sure.

* * *

Carver can't remember how many days it has been when they finally dock in Starkhaven.

Everything's a wash of grey, just this low down murk shot through with shapes and sounds that make him flinch. He grips his face in his hands, trying to pull himself together, and it's Alistair who chivvies him onward, makes him stagger along the road toward the Chantry compound that houses the Templars here.

It's a good thing his feet still remember the way, because he can barely make sense of anything, and the first glimpse of Templar plate is like the shock of coming up for air.

"You." He stops, blinks, tries to _think_ , but everything has gone to wool and he _hurts_ all over like he's been rolled in broken glass. But he knows this knight, even in his helmet, knows the hang of his robes and the insolent shift of his shoulders. The name swims into focus in his head, finally coming clear. "Geary," he says, and of all the people in the world why did it have to be Geary?

"Serrah," Geary says, but then he jerks like he's been stung. " _Hawke_?"

Carver tries to tell him about the apprentices, but the world sinks and sways, and when it steadies there's a strong shoulder under his arm, the bite of plate through his shirt, and someone is bitching impressively about Fereldans and the sense the Maker gave small green apples.

It's nonsense. Carver ignores it, just tries to keep his feet, though he knows he's useless. They try to take his sword but he won't let them, and then he blinks and realises he's inside the gates, the courtyard spread out before him like ...

Like home.

Someone is yelling something, and someone else joins in, and Carver pushes away from whoever has been dragging him along to stand all himself. The effort nearly fells him, but he has to. Where are the kids? He needs to tell someone, they need to be--

"Settle your tits, Butcher. The wee ones are _fine_."

Oh, thank the Maker. Carver wavers on his feet, and Tristram's hand on his shoulder is a rock he's only too willing to cling to.

"Which is more than I can say for you. Get on, then, help the man out!"

Someone comes up alongside and takes his weight for him, and then there's another, and in the fuss of it all Carver goes gratefully into the dark.

* * *

When he dreams, everything is chaos. There's something wrong and this voice that keeps whispering to him, _You're all right, little brother. You're going to be all right. Maker, you're a stubborn little shit, you know that?_

It's irritating but familiar, and the combination comforts him in a way that he would never have expected.

It goes on for ages, and Carver ignores it, which gives him a wicked sort of satisfaction. Whoever it is won't stop, relentless, but Carver goes on ignoring them, hunkered down to weather the storm.

* * *

He wakes because people are arguing. They're trying to be quiet about it, but they're not doing a very good job, and Carver finds himself dragged up the gullet of sleep to be spat out, sweat-slicked and groggy, on a familiar bed in a familiar room, with one very familiar voice growling something he has a feeling is horribly relevant to him.

"--don't have a Healer, for 'draste's sake! We've been sending all our mages to bleeding _Cumberland_ , if you don't recall."

"There are the apprentices," says someone else with an Orlesian accent, soft and melodic and strangely familiar.

Tristram (because of course it's Tristram) makes a disgusted noise. "Oh, aye. As though I'd let one of the wee ones have at him. Like as not they'd pull his brain right out through his ears. You cannae fix this with magic, anyway, only give a bit of comfort. He'll just have to ride it out, same as any of us."

They're talking about him. Carver is sure of it, and he resents it, because he isn't bloody dead yet. 

"Gyaargh," he says, which wasn't at all what he'd wanted, and it comes out a croaky mess that only sets him to coughing.

"For the love of--" Whatever Tristram had been meaning to say is cut off short, and then the bed dips and someone is holding a cup to his mouth, water sweet on his tongue. Not just water, it's laced with herbs and -- thank everything -- lyrium like bitter honey. He gulps it down and Tristram scolds him. "Sip it, you monster, or you'll puke it back up. There you go. Maker's _balls_ , Butcher." He sounds shaken, but that can't be right. Tristram's a rock, after all.

Carver sips the water until it's gone, and then he melts into his pillows, flooded with lyrium and its terrible overclarity.

He looks up. He's in his room in Starkhaven, the one he got when they promoted him to Knight Lieutenant. He recognises the dinginess of it, the rough curtain pulled over his tiny window, the pale pattern of clover on the cloth. Tristram is sitting on the side of his bed, looking dire as all fuck. There's worry creased around his eyes, and Carver thinks it might be for _him_. 

"Ser," he says, and Tristram grips his flailing hand, holding onto it tight enough to hurt.

"You're all right, boy-oh. Hey, now, just lie still. You'll be right as rain in _a day or two_ ," he says, too pointedly for it to be for Carver, and Carver looks up, blinking into the murky light to see.

There's a chair in the corner, and someone sitting in it. Carver can't make them out, they're too far out of the circle of candlelight, and anyway they have their hood pulled up. Carver doesn't like that, but then he doesn't like any of this. Except Tristram, and the lyrium. Fuck he feels almost alive again, instead of nearly dead.

"A day or two will be too late," the stranger says, and Carver thinks they might be a woman. "You know that."

"Pick someone else," Tristram says, his grip on Carver's hand tightening until it grinds his bones. "I'll not let you ruin one of mine for your scheming."

"There is no-one else."

"I'll go, I told you--"

"It cannot be you. You know why. And Sebastian Vael will not listen to anyone else."

Carver clears his throat, feeling thick and rough and still only almost alive. "What ... what's going on?" And then, because he can't stand it-- "The apprentices..."

"Are _fine_. As I said." It sounds as though Tristram's weary of saying it, and Carver wonders how many times he's asked. "They're dry and safe and fed. No worriting, little brother. You just soak up your lyrium and let me handle everything. You've done enough."

"But--"

"No." Tristram rattles Carver's hand in his palm. "Just shut up, will you?"

"He deserves to know what is at stake, no?"

"He deserves a _fuckin' rest!_ " Tristram snarls, turning on her like an angry mabari. "Give the lad that much afore you wring him dry, woman!"

She stands up. She isn't especially tall, nor broad-shouldered, but there's something about the way she holds herself that seems deadly, and Carver struggles to sit up. He fails at that, but she steps into the light, and her face--

"Sister Leliana?"

For a moment she looks shocked, and then it smooths away. "I didn't think you would remember me, Carver."

"How could I forget?" He'd spent so long staring at her across the pews in Lothering's Chantry. Red hair, like Peaches, but a woman where Peaches had still been a girl. The first Orlesian accent he'd ever heard. The only one he's ever really liked. Maker, he hasn't thought of her in years but the last time he had--

The blush floods his face, because oh, yeah, the _last_ time. Blankets over his head, trying to hold his breath so no-one could hear. Maker, he'd thought himself such a filthy little pervert back then, wishing for a kiss or a touch from a woman grown.

She looks amused, and he realises he must have sounded like he was flirting, which is just ridiculous coming from someone halfway dead. "Well. You have grown up since then, into a fine young man. Brave, devout, and dutiful."

Tristam makes a disgusted noise. "None of that, Sister -- Leliana or Nightingale or whatever you're calling yourself. He's _mine_. You can't have him."

"Have me for what?" It's still a struggle, until Tristram helps him up onto his pillows, and the effort lays him out but at least he's sat up, and can look the Sister in the eye. She isn't dressed like a Sister. She's dressed more like a rogue in her brigandine and trousers, knives and potions at her hip, her dark cowl pinned to her collar. Lovely and deadly. And distracting. "What _about_ Sebastian?"

Tristram settles back against Carver's headboard with a harrumph, folding his arms and scowling. Sister Leliana cocks a hand on her hip, flourishing the other as she speaks. "Sebastian Vael is on his way here. He has amassed quite the following, almost an army. No-one knows for certain what he means to do with them, but his intent seems obvious. Starkhaven is, after all, his by right."

"He gave that up," Carver says, but then-- "No. _Brother_ Sebastian gave that up."

She leans forward, suddenly intent. "Has he renounced his vows?"

"I don't ... no, I don't know." But he knows Sebastian could, and what it could mean.

"What do you think, Knight Captain?" Leliana asks, tilting her head in a show of deference.

Tristram makes a face. "Last time he was here, Valery gave his word as a Chantry Brother that he'd never return without his cousin's permission. If he's coming back all the same, all bets are off."

"Good." Leliana hesitates only a moment before nodding. "Then we know what to do."

Carver feels his face scrunch up in confusion, and it pulls at the tight skin of his cheek in an awkward way. "I don't. Why is that good? What's _going on_?"

"Sister Nightingale wants Sebastian for the throne," Tristram says, ignoring Leliana's pout. "No, you said he deserved to know, so I'm gunna tell him. Prince Goran," he says, his brow drawing down, "has nae head for conflict, and that's what's coming. Your lot saw to that," he adds, rubbing a hand over his brow in exasperation. "We need some fucking unity here in Starkhaven, and with Goran at odds with Callion _and_ the Grand Cleric we'll be lucky not to end up like Kirkwall."

"And now, we have addition of the apprentices." Leliana looks from one of them to the other, her expression grim. "The Prince will not be pleased when he discovers you mean to keep them. He will see that as a gathering of power against him."

"Paranoid little bawbag," Tristram mutters. And then-- "What? Did you think I'd be sending your kids to Cumberland, now?" He gives Carver a put-upon look. "After you went to so much trouble to get them here, safe and sound. Have a little faith, boy-oh."

"I just didn't think the Knight Commander would let you, ser," Carver says, thinking as best he can through the fog. If the Prince of Starkhaven is on the outs with Knight Commander Callion and the Grand Cleric both then, yeah, it's Kirkwall all over again. Fuck. Fuck them all to the _void_.

"Well, we'll see how long that lasts," Tristram says, glancing away. "Here, drink this. All of it, and sip it, mind." Carver does as he's told, listening. "So, if we could get our Sebastian to sit his pretty behind on that old throne he wants nothing to do with, we'd be halfway to a solution. The good sister," and he nods to Leliana, "swears that Grand Cleric Merida will throw her support behind him if he makes a try for it."

"She will, I know it."

Carver thinks. It sounds good, but his head is still fuzzy, and something seems off. "What about the Knight Commander?"

"The Knight Captain will take care of that," Leliana says, dismissing it with a flick of her fingers. "So, he must remain here, and it falls to you to convey our invitation to Sebastian Vael."

Oh. It makes a sort of sense, except in how much it doesn't. Carver can't even sit up by himself, how could he possibly take a message to Sebastian?

And, another thing, much more important. "Goran Vael's the Prince of Starkhaven," he says slowly, the thing expanding in his head until he can't ignore it or leave it unsaid. "Isn't this treason?"

From the looks they exchange, they both know exactly what it is.

"That depends on whether or not you think he came by his throne rightfully," Leliana says, her voice the same gentle lilt in which she'd once recited the Chant in Lothering.

Carver doesn't know. How could he possibly know?

Leliana clears her throat, and reaches one gloved hand to the pouch at her belt. "I have documents," she says simply, "that suggest Goran Vael's involvement in the conspiracy against the late prince of Starkhaven, Sebastian's father, and the deaths of the royal family."

It's not much, but what she has is damning. A letter from Lady Harimann to Lord Goran, and an explicit return with his signature scrawled across it. A demand from the captain of the Flint mercenary company, with a warning of exposure if all debts were not paid in full. Another letter from Goran Vael, to some noble Carver's never heard of, suggesting that they wait on making hasty decisions until after an event 'soon to come to pass', dated three days before the massacre of Sebastian's family.

Carver hands the papers back, and now he's spinning with what it means, and what is going to happen. Also, just spinning, with exhaustion and the toll of the last month. Month? It feels like so much longer.

Leliana says softly, "So, you see, it is less a matter of treason, than of restoring order."

"If it settles your gut," Tristram says, low down and rough, "he's been a hard ruler, with no cause for it. Taxes keep going up, and I've not seen them spent on anything worthwhile. He tightened the crafter laws to keep outlanders from their trade. And local women, too -- now a married woman needs her husband's say-so if she wants to sell her work, her father's if she's not married, or she's a widow. Not a lot of fathers and husbands to go round, these days."

"Do not forget the elves," Leliana adds, watching Carver as if waiting for something. "Now they must apprentice to a human, or face stiff fines. And there is a curfew on the alienage."

Tristram snorts. "He doesn't seem to mind dwarves, though. Fine dwarven crafts, as far as the eye can see, but he taxes them too. Prices are through the roof."

It sounds ... Carver takes a deep breath. "And you think Sebastian would be better."

"Aye. Do you not?"

He does. Fuck, it's fucking _politics_ , and it does his head in when he's his best self, but now it's like wading through mud. Except it seems so clear what has to happen. Maker, he _knows_ Sebastian, for all his faults, would be better than this.

"All right." He clears his throat, looking up at them both, dark eyes and light watching him so intently. "All right. I'm in."

"You're in your _sickbed_ , boy-oh," Tristram argues, leaning a hand on his shoulder. "Don't you rush this just because a pretty woman tells you to."

It's ridiculous, but there's a part of him that knows he's not just doing this just because it's logical. Leliana is a piece of Lothering, the last bit of it left, and she's asking him to do this. He can't say no.

"Think on it," she says, and then, because she's good at what she does, she leans down to kiss his cheek. She kisses the bad side, the side he still hasn't seen, and the pressure is dim through whatever has happened to his flesh. She smells sweet, like powder and Andraste's Grace. "Do not think on it too long."

She goes, then, leaving him alone with his Knight Captain.

Tristram lets out a long breath. "Andraste's _snatch_." He scrubs a hand over his face, and Carver sees now how tired he is, how thoroughly done with it all. "You dinnae have to do it. I'll find someone else."

Carver shakes his head, slow, because he's still such a ruin that it hurts his head. "There isn't anyone else. Is there?"

"Fair fucking few, and maybe only we two." Tristram tips his cheek into the palm of his hand, elbow planted on his thigh, and glances up across his cheek with such a sorry look. "I'd have kept you out of it, if I could."

But he can't, and Carver has to. "It's my duty, isn't it?"

"T'isn't. Your duty is to your little magelings. Fuck me drunk, Butcher, but did you _have_ to drop two dozen baby mages in my lap with no word of warning?"

He's teasing, Carver can tell, and he's too exhausted to bite. Anyway. "I had twenty-six when I left Kirkwall. Lost two in Wycome. Ser."

"Aye. Two of them ran off, I'm told, while you were doing what-all to get the rest passage upriver." He waves a hand into Carver's frown, apparently unconcerned. "Got a report from your Alistair. Good lad, that one, though he's insubordinate as cats. You like them feisty, I know."

Carver makes a face. "It's not like _that_ ," he says, and Tristram grins at him, that same rotten grin.

"Didn't mean it _like that_ , boy-oh, but now you've got me thinkin'. Naw, I meant like our Lachlan. And that Maglene," and he rolls his eyes dramatically. "Two -- _two_ Templasses in the Starkhaven barracks. Never thought I'd see the day." He sobers then, and lifts a hand to touch his fingertips to Carver's jaw, on the bad side. "Och, lad. If I'd known Cullen would use you so ill I'd never have let him have you back. No, even so. I should never have let you go."

It's too much. Carver feels too much, and he _can't_ feel it so he walls it up as best he can for later, though 'later' keeps getting further and further away. But what he says is, "It wasn't Cullen's fault. He ... it was _my_ fault, all of it."

Tristram's mouth pinches tight. "Not the way I've heard it told."

"You don't know, ser. I was ... Maker." And he puts his hands to his face, feeling the strangeness on one side and the beard-stubble come up on the other. "What a fucking fool I was."

He tells it all, then. It's hard and he gets most of it backwards, but the essential points are unavoidable -- there was a demon, and then a cell. Garrett came for him. Meredith ordered him to kill his brother, and instead -- how stupid he feels now to say it aloud -- he turned the knife on her. For all the good that did. And Garrett was struck down anyway, and then there was Justice, which is a whole other story in itself. The Chantry went up in a tower of dust. Carver was ordered to evacuate the apprentices. The mob, Isabela, the boat, and he _left his knights behind_. Selwyn, tranquil now. Garrett dead. Cullen sent him away. Failure at every turn, and all of it because he wasn't templar enough to resist a demon.

Tristram listens to all of it, does not interrupt, just raises his eyebrows at the more lurid bits. When Carver's done Tristram nods, and hands him another cup of herb-and-lyrium-laced water.

"Sounds to me like you did what you had to, when you had to." Carver opens his mouth to argue but Tristram doesn't let him. "And, for what it's worth, you had a demon buggering about in your head longer than I've known you. In all that time I've never seen word nor action from you that was against your duty. Oh, you were a sorry lot when I got you, but," and he shakes his head, "that was grief, and guilt. You never did wrong by me, nor my knights, nor the mages that passed through our hands. You did your duty, demon or no."

"I could have--"

"Oh, aye, you _could_ have. But, did Cullen never tell you what he did _after_ the mess in Kinloch Hold?" When Carver shakes his head, Tristram makes a face. Distaste or disgust, it's hard to tell. "After the blood mages and demons, after the Blight. He was sick, y'know, with the things they did to him. So sick that one day he killed two apprentices, and ran away to Denerim."

Carver ... no. What? "I don't-- were they abominations? Or blood mages?"

"No-one knows. Maybe. Maybe not." He rolls his shoulders, clasping his hands together and examining the knot of them. "The Order picked him up, picked him over, and shipped him off to Kirkwall, where Meredith fucking _promoted_ him. And so."

It sounds so wrong. The Cullen Carver knows would never do something so ... so awful. And yet. 

_I was unwell, then._ Cullen said, and Carver remembers it. _I don't know that I've ever been well since._

Still. "He was sick, you said."

"He was not himself. And, by your account, you were not yourself when that demon had you enthralled. But all I saw was a good knight, with a good heart, trying to do his best by his duty and his Maker." He looks up then, the whites of his eyes stark against his cheek. "If that's your worst, Butcher, then what you've done to get those wee bits all the way here, while you were tearing yourself apart for lyrium, that might be your best. But I don't think so. I think your best is something I might be lucky enough to see one day."

He reaches out then, wraps a hand heavy around Carver's shoulder, squeezing hard, and it's something Carver has missed so badly he feels the knot of it rise up in his throat. 

"You've done well, little brother. I couldn't be more proud of you."

Carver has to close his eyes. He can't bear how it _feels_ , and it feels so much more now than it ever had when the demon ... the demon ... no, he has to face it, the demon had been eating every bit of him that had anything to feel.

His Knight Captain is quiet while Carver _does not weep_ , waits until he's pulled himself together, just sits with him, his hand a solid comfort all the while, thumb rubbing smooth circles into the muscles of Carver's shoulder.

Eventually, Carver swallows. "Can I ask a favor, ser?"

"You can _ask_ ," Tristram says, back to his wry, normal self. "I cannae stop you."

"Tell me what's wrong with my face."

It's almost comical how Tristram flinches. But before Carver can take it too much to heart, Tristram says, "Has no-one shown you? Wait a bit, let me--"

He rummages around, and comes back with the cracked old shaving mirror Carver had once shoved onto the back of a shelf to replace with his own. He hands it over silently, and waits while Carver holds it up.

The intake of breath is involuntary. That's his _face_ now, still his face but .... fuck, he's gaunt. Dark circles under his eyes like the circles he'd always wanted to take from Cullen. He looks like a lyrium addict, and he is, so it shouldn't be a surprise. Fuck, he's _raw_. But worse is the burn-scar, all down one side. It runs from his temple to his jaw, a long finger of it up over one eye through his brow, two licks into his hairline, and it covers his cheek all the way to his chin, down his neck into his collar. It looks old, though, healed up and worn in, like he's had it for years. _Senior Enchanter Edith_ , he thinks, and he remembers her saying, _He'll keep the use of his eye._ Blurry as it is, now. Thank the Maker (thank Edith) for that, at least.

The skin is puckered and pinched, and weirdly smooth in places, and his stubble on that side is patchy between the ruined parts, but beneath it he's still himself, still Carver.

He lowers the mirror, and tries not to care. "Guess it could be worse."

"Worse? Ach," and Tristram leans in to wrap an arm around his shoulders, grinning like it's all a hilarious joke. "Now you're _rugged_ , Butcher! Scars give a man _character_ , aye? Look at you, all a man now."

"Shaving'll be bloody awful," he says, and Tristram laughs, hugging him up. 

"Aye, it will. If you need a hand with it--"

"Respectfully, fuck off, ser," Carver says, and Tristram fair cackles at him, all of him warm and comforting down Carver's side.

"No, no, I'd be _glad_ to help. Don't ye trust me that close to your face with a naked blade?"

It's funny, and then it reminds him too hard of Cullen. "Reckon I'll manage."

"If you say so." And then Tristram sobers again, his face very close, eyes unavoidable. "Hey, boy-oh. It's good to have you home. Stay, this time."

Carver has to swallow before he can speak. "Do my best, ser."

"Good." He ruffles Carver's hair in a way that should be more annoying than it actually is, his smile something fond and regretful. "Don't you fret yourself about what Sister Nightingale wants. You don't have to do anything yet, just get your strength back. I'll be needing you soon enough." And then he smirks. "You'll have to tell me, one day, how you knew her. And what colour her smalls are, if that's how."

"I _don't_ know that," Carver protests, and Tristram chuckles into his shoulder, warm and heavy and comfortingly annoying, and it's all right. 

Everything's all right, for now. Safe and ... and okay. He'll have this, for a while, even if it can't last past tomorrow.


	49. Chapter 49

The watch-tower is a derelict, but once it's in sight Sebastian suggests they make camp there, despite the early hour. They are within a day's march of Starkhaven City, and Fenris wants to push on, but Sebastian, for all that he couches it as a suggestion, suggests it very firmly.

"My cousin will not be pleased to see me," he says, "nor will he be pleased to find so many refugees within his borders. It would be best to secure his approval before approaching the gates of the city."

It makes sense, but Fenris mislikes the grounds of the tower. It is clear why it has been abandoned -- the well is dry and they must haul water from a distant stream. Also, there are too many in their party now to house them all within the tower, and their sprawling camp on the crest of the hill is hardly defensible. When he says as much to Sebastian, however, Sebastian just frowns at him. 

"You expect we will need to defend it?"

He does not, yet it seems better to plan for such things than to be caught unawares. Sebastian seems unconvinced, but he allows Fenris to go through the motions of defenses all the same. It has come in handy on the few occasions they have been approached by enterprising bandits, or local militia dissatisfied with the proximity of the refugees. There has been little bloodshed -- thanks be to the Maker -- the appearance of strength enough to see them safely through. So far. Fenris is grateful to the Maker for His mercy, but he does not trust it to hold.

They reserve the tower for the children, their mothers, the elderly, the infirm. The rest camp out in a mess around the base, and Fenris makes certain once again that every able-bodied member of their party is armed with whatever is to hand. Sometimes that is nothing more than a belt-knife or a fire-iron or a sharpened branch, not enough swords nor bows to go around.

And then there are the mages. 

Fenris stumbled over them a sevenday from Kirkwall, and once he understood what he was seeing he cursed himself for not realising it sooner.

Their robes were dirty and torn, but they were _robes_ , once-bright silks decorated with lace and brocade. Many of them wore their cowls pulled low over their eyes, and only a few carried staves, but they were _mages_ , undeniably so.

Still, Fenris might have overlooked them if he had not caught one in the act of lighting a fire with magic.

The magic hauled on his lyrium, familiar and awful, and he had his sword drawn before he had time to think.

"You!" The man had looked up, eyes gone wide beneath his cowl, and then the hot bloom of magic billowed up in him, in the woman by his side, two others behind, and Fenris had realised how outnumbered he was. Venhedis, there were a _dozen_ of them, all with the same wild look in their eyes that he knew from _all_ his refugees, one that spoke to their desperation.

He would take as many with him as he could. It was the best he could do.

But one of the women had struggled to the front, and said, " _Leto_ ," and he could do nothing, frozen in his disbelief.

Varania pushed back her cowl. She was wild, yes, but not desperate, only determined. 

"Leto," she said again, hands spread wide, baring her wrists. "We mean no harm."

He did not believe her, but he wanted to, and so he listened long enough for someone to send for Orana, and then--

"You _knew_ about this! Mages in our midst!" How _angry_ he was then, that she would keep it from him. "You lied to me!"

"I told my brother enough to do what he must," she said, voice and face calm though her hands shook at her waist. "They are people, in need. She is your _sister_."

It was the shaking of her hands that took the anger from him -- how could she still fear him, after all they had done for one another? How could she not trust him?

The light caught on the naked blade in his hands, and he thought, _That she has_ ever _trusted me is the true miracle._

He sheathed his sword, and did not tell Sebastian.

So now he goes to the mage camp. It is much like the others, a campfire with bedding and baggage piled around it, a pot of something over the flames. The mages have traded much of their finery for the dull shirts and trousers of working-folk -- they have been good in that regard, trading and sharing what they have and helping where they can. It is enough for him to trust them a very little. It is not enough for him to forgive any of them for being what they are.

Not even Varania.

She is not their leader. That scant title would go to the woman he suspects is her wife, but she speaks for them often enough. She comes to him now, wiping her hands on a cloth. She does not carry a staff, only a long and wicked knife at her belt. He tells himself he is not afraid of her, rather that she is afraid of him.

"Brother," she says. She will not call him 'Fenris'. He pressed her once and she called it a slave name. He has not pointed out that 'Leto' was also a slave name, that 'Varania' is a slave name, that they are still, both of them, slaves, no matter that they are now free. He suspects she would disagree. And so. 'Brother' he allows, though he does not like it.

"Do your people need supplies?" He keeps it short, to the point, tries not to look at her without making it obvious that it makes him uncomfortable to do so. Neither does he look at the girl dogging her heels, black-haired little thing with such _eyes_ that stare at him endlessly.

Varania shakes her head. "We are well. Do we go to the city in the morning?"

She speaks Tevene with him. He speaks it back, out of habit. Orana's fault, if there is fault to be laid. "Perhaps. It is uncertain." Fenris suspects it will not happen. Sebastian is so reluctant, and reluctant to discuss the why of it beyond 'my cousin would disapprove' and 'there is time enough yet for that'. "Have you news for me?"

Again she shakes her head. Her hair is long now, bound in a single braid down her back. She no longer wears her cowl, and he knows now she only kept it to hide from _him_. Now it is useless to her. "Nothing worse than scrapes and bruises, a little sickness treated with herbs. Nothing more."

This is their agreement. The mages provide some care for the hurt and the ill, but they do it without magic where they can, and in secret when they must, for they must remain secret. In exchange, Fenris lets them stay. He tells himself it is worth it, that they carry their weight, but it makes him uneasy to know that abominations may sleep only a campfire or so from where Tully makes his bed. Still.

"If there is a change to this, inform me of it," he says, and leaves her there.

Sebastian is sitting in a circle of old men and children in the courtyard of the watch-tower, fletching arrows. He has a child in his lap, and is showing the child how to cut and splice and bind, though Fenris notes he will not allow the child to hold the knife themself. For a moment he thinks the child is Tully but they are not, are human instead, ears round beneath the silky golden cap of their hair. Tully is about somewhere and Fenris will find him soon enough, so for now he stops to see if Sebastian needs of him.

"No, I am well. Though, I think Lorca is hungry," he adds, bouncing the child on his knee.

The child looks up, and then reaches for Fenris' hand. "Bread?" they say, hopeful, and Fenris sighs because bread is in short supply. But they passed a farm the day before, with an orchard attached, and Fenris knows they traded for some withered fruit amongst the rest.

"Shall we find you an apple?" he asks, and the child goes with him easily, clinging to him the way all these children cling to an adult they have decided to trust.

They find Orana, who supplies them with a wizened apple that the child takes eagerly, and she tells him Tully went after Karasaad, as he does whenever he is left to his own devices.

The refugees have taken to calling Karasaad their 'tame Qunari', which Fenris finds offensive and Karasaad does not. He is, he says, quite tamed, and the children seem to think so at the very least. They follow him about in droves, pestering him with questions and pleas for play, and he is patient with them in a way Fenris had not expected of someone so dour. 

"Children are the flower of the Qun," Karasaad told him, when once he questioned the Tal'Vashoth's tolerance of his many tiny followers. "How will they learn if not by example?"

He is easy to find, in any case. Fenris follows the sound of children, their high-pitched chatter carrying over the noise of the camp. Karasaad is chopping wood, has obviously felled several trees and is now taking them to pieces. The children are helping him pile the pieces up, though he keeps the children well out of range of the axe he is using to reduce lumber to logs and logs to kindling.

When Tully sees Fenris he wraps himself around Fenris' leg and begs for an axe of his own.

"You are too small for an axe," Fenris says, ruffling Tully's hair. "What is that on your face?"

"Vitaar," Tully tells him, holding out his arms and spinning in a circle to show it off. "Like Karasaad."

Tully is not the only child with painted cheeks, dry tracks of red-brown that Fenris now sees mimic the markings Karasaad still wears on his face and across the breadth of his bare chest. 

"It is only mud," Karasaad says, hefting his axe over his shoulder, not even breathing hard for all his exertion. "They asked for it, and so I made a game of it for them."

"Does that not dishonour the Qun?" Fenris asks, though he suspects that, despite leaving those beliefs behind, Karasaad would not have allowed it if that were so.

The Tal'Vashoth snorts, and one of the children snorts also, in imitation. "Vitaar is armour for the skin and the soul. It makes them brave. They have made their own patterns of it -- there is no offence to the Qun in that."

"A small axe," Tully begs, tugging at Fenris' elbow. "Small like Tully."

"He is not too small for a hatchet," Karasaad says, and Fenris glares at him for encouraging this, opening his mouth to protest, but then he hears the high-pitched whistle of one of the poachers they use as scouts.

Someone approaches. Fenris tells Tully to stay with Karasaad and goes toward the sound.

"Armour shine, down there," and the woman points down the slope along the road toward Starkhaven. She scratches her nose, looking disgruntled. "Easy to spot, when they're so shiny. Templars, I reckon. No-one shines up like a bloody Templar."

She is Kirkwallian, like so many of them. None of the Kirkwallers like Templars, Fenris has realised. The ones who did stayed behind.

There is a company of them, down on the road. He cannot count them at this distance but his scout numbers them-- "At least two dozen, maybe more."

Fenris does not know why they come now, nor what they want, but he is at least not opposed to Templars in and of themselves. These are Starkhaven Templars, after all, and he has only rumours on which to judge them. Fair, he's heard. Hard on mages. Well used to getting their own way. Well, that is true of Templars everywhere but Tevinter, he supposes, and he has some small hope that the inevitable confrontation will not come to bloodshed so he waits, with a few others who seem to have nothing better to do.

Sebastian joins them at the crest of the rise, and he has his bow and his armour, but he does not take charge, simply stands at Fenris' left hand pretending an idle interest. Fenris knows better. Or he thinks he does. He isn't sure that he knows Sebastian at all anymore. He has been so distant for so long. 

He hopes Sebastian remembers his promises. He hopes for many things. How foolish he would have thought himself, only a few years ago, to hope for something as fragile as a promise.

The Templars start to come up the rise, and Fenris steps out of the crowd to hold up a hand, wondering as he does if they will even acknowledge him. 

"That is far enough," he says, but then one of them comes up, tearing off his helmet, and Fenris--

No. This cannot be real.

" _Fenris?_ " 

It's Carver. It is, it is _him_ , and he laughs, spreading his arms wide, helmet dangling from one gauntleted hand.

"What the-- I mean. You're here." His face is all wrong, too gaunt and too haggard and laced with scars all down one side, but it is _Carver Hawke_ , his Hawke, his but not his, and Fenris had never thought to see him again in this life.

But it is him, and this is _real_ , and Fenris knows it for true.

"Hawke!" Sebastian goes down the slope, though .... Carver is not alone. This could still be a trap, could it not? But Fenris cannot stop him, and then Sebastian is slapping Hawke on one armoured shoulder, making his plate rattle with it. "Well met, my friend. Come up, come up. We have poor hospitality to share, but what we have is yours." And while Fenris thinks, _No, this is ill advised,_ Sebastian flicks a hand at the rest of Carver's company. "Your men must tarry below, there is no room for them up there."

It is a lie and an obvious one. There is space on the rise, even within the tower grounds, but Carver only hesitates a moment before he says, "All right." He turns to his knights, giving orders, and the Templars disperse around the base of the hill, and Carver comes up, side-by-side with Sebastian, as if they are friends instead of whatever it was they had seemed -- to Fenris, at least -- to be before.

Carver brings with him two knights and a woman in smart leathers, and when he comes up to Fenris he grins, scar tissue stretched across his cheek old and worn in as if he's had it for years, which is impossible.

"You're alive," he says, sounding relieved. "Good to know."

Fenris opens his mouth, so many things backed up on his tongue -- _You_ are alive! How did you damage your face? How can you be here? -- but all he can do is clear his throat and say, "Come up. We have water."

"No wine?" Carver asks, but it's a tease, not a real question, and Fenris ignores it.

Sebastian takes them up to the campfire he shares with Fenris and Orana and Tully, and invites Carver and his companions to sit. "There are bedrolls," he says, but Carver waves it off, squatting down on a patch of grass and leaving the others standing.

Someone brings water when Fenris asks for it, and the cups are handed around. Fenris wishes they had tea, but the tea is long gone. Water is all they have.

Carver does not seem to mind. "So." He looks from Sebastian to Fenris and colours a little before turning back to the priest-who-is-also-a-prince. "We need to talk."

"About Starkhaven," Sebastian says, seated cross-legged on his own bedroll. He seems unconcerned, but Fenris (who has been very concerned with him all the way from Kirkwall to here) can see the tension in his hands, and how stiffly he holds himself. He expects the worst. Fenris wonders what the worst would be, for him.

"Yeah, about Starkhaven. And if you're coming here with your lot because you need a place to stay or because of ... other things."

The woman in leathers has come down by his side; she makes a soft sound, kneeling on the turf. "This is a delicate discussion," she says quietly, eyes flickering about the camp. "Perhaps this is not the best place for it."

"This is the only place for it." Sebastian takes a deep breath, lifting his gaze to take them both in. "Fenris can hear everything I have to say, and no-one else is really listening."

It's true -- most of their hangers-on have gone away, save for a few children who gawk at the templar plate because it's interesting and new. 

Carver looks uncomfortable. He shrugs, eyeing the woman sidelong. "Well?"

"Sebastian Vael," she says, folding her hands on her knees, all her attention on Sebastian. "There is a great need for you in Starkhaven. Goran Vael is a poor leader, who does not treat well with the most vulnerable citizens of Starkhaven, and it would be best for all if you would supplant him. Are you willing?"

It is direct, and Fenris sees Sebastian flinch from it. 

But is that not what they are here to do? To put Sebastian on his throne, and for Fenris to find a safe place for Tully and Orana within his largesse?

They have talked around it so many times but that is _all_ they can do here. There is no other option.

Sebastian looks unhappy. Fenris has nothing with which to soothe him. All he can do now is listen.

"It is treason to speak of this," Sebastian says, looking to Carver more than the woman.

Carver shrugs. "Only if you think he deserves what he's got. Sister Nightingale here has letters that say he might ... well, it looked like he was in on what happened to your family." Carver grimaces, perhaps feeling the weight of what he has said. "I'm sorry."

Sebastian absorbs this quietly, folding his hands and lifting them to his mouth. "You're sure of that?"

Carver looks to the woman. She nods, her face grave. "I have the proof of it with me."

"I would like to see it."

"I would be happy to show them to you, serrah." The woman reaches for her pouch, and Fenris tenses, alert for an attack.

Which is when he realises that he has become Sebastian's bodyguard in this. How long it has been since he filled the role, and how easily it comes to him again. But this time he has _chosen_. What a wealth of difference it makes.

All she does is bring out papers wrapped in an oilskin, and she hands them to Sebastian and Sebastian pours over them long enough that Fenris feels his nerves wind tight with the effort to stay motionless.

And then Sebastian looks up. His eyes are bright, and wet. "I did not believe my cousin capable of such things," he says, and he sounds so sad. Then he firms his mouth. "But still. It would be a great upheaval for me to overthrow him. Starkhaven deserves better."

"Starkhaven," the woman says gravely, "can do no better than you."

The moment draws out, and then Carver makes a rough sound, pushing himself to his feet. "Listen to her, Sebastian. It's your bloody throne. Just come and get it, all right?"

"And if I said the same to you of Kirkwall?" He says it easily enough, but there is something hard and sharp in the shape of it. "There is a throne there with the Amell name on it."

Carver shakes his head. "I'm not an Amell. Just a Hawke. Nobody, really." Fenris wants to protest this, but Carver's scowl is fierce. "Can I bring my knights up, or are we pretending you don't need the wall of armour?"

Sebastian clears his throat. "You may. I will hold you accountable for them, however."

"Done," Carver says and then he walks away, his two knights falling in at his back, toward the crest of the hill. Fenris wants to go after him. He wants more than anything for Carver to look back.

And Carver does. His eyes catch Fenris' and hold there for a moment that seems to last forever. 

And then he turns away.

Fenris wants to go after him, to ask so many things -- How are you here? How did you get that scar? What happened to you? Are you well?

But he cannot.

So he stays by Sebastian's side, half-listening to him argue with the woman, and every moment he stays behind feels like a mistake.


	50. Chapter 50

The tower grounds would be a good place to make camp, if there wasn't already a camp here. The place is overrun, sprawling, and as he walks through it Carver can't help but see its weaknesses, the gaps in its armour.

Full as it is, it's a bad place to make camp. But he doesn't know how long they're staying. A glass or two. The night, at most, or he hopes as much.

And Fenris is here. Holy Maker, how can it be? He's spent _years_ trying not to think about Fenris and now ... now Fenris is here.

The last time he saw Fenris he'd been so wrapped up in his own misery he couldn't make space for how _good_ it was to see him, how his chest aches now for things he can't have. Things he thought he'd had, once, a long time ago.

Things he'd thought he could have with Cullen.

That's a rotten tooth to tongue, but Carver can't help himself, as he makes his way down to his knights. Cullen. What Cullen did to him when he found out about the demon. And, if he's honest with himself, he can't ignore what Fenris did, instead.

Cullen abandoned him. Fenris didn't.

He'd have thought it would go the other way around.

"Ser," Lachlan says, close by his side. "What are we doing?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Carver says, and he can feel Lachlan's dissatisfaction, can practically see the look Lachlan gives Maglene, behind his back. Those two have butted up against one another like angry cats, but he's glad of them both. Lachlan, who is the closest thing he's ever had to a protege of his own. And Maglene, who chose him all herself. What he could do with them both. What he could already have done with either, had things gone another way.

But now he's down amongst his knights and he doesn't have time to dwell on what-ifs and maybes. He has to tell them to ready themselves for a stay, because he's seen the camp. Sebastian's not getting out of it any time soon, unless Sister-Leliana-Nightingale talks him into leaving his refugees behind.

Carver's pretty sure that won't happen, though Sebastian's changeable enough, his determination blowing with the wind. Maybe he'll come round. Maybe he won't. In the event that he doesn't, Carver has things to do.

He orders them to set up a camp of their own. Lachlan's squad are on guard duty, and Gavriel's too, watching over the woods. He doesn't like the look of the woods, too dark and too deep and too fucking _close_. He wants his knights between them and the refugees, so he gives them some orders and watches them scowl and scramble up to do what they have to.

Maglene dogs his heels until he tells her, quite firmly, to make herself useful. She scowls at him and then she's off, attaching herself to Uldred's lot. She's a good knight, but he needs her to make her own way in Starkhaven. After all, he doesn't know how long he'll be staying.

There's Cullen, after all, back in Kirkwall. Sister Leliana told him that Cullen is _alive_ , has taken command of the Gallows, though she tells him so little else. But Cullen. Maybe Cullen will summon him, when things settle down. Maybe not. He thinks not, given the last words between them. And if he doesn't, well. Carver has his duty, when he has nothing else. And he's hurt, still, by all of that, and what Cullen said.

_I have no use for you._

Maybe he doesn't. Maybe Carver has always been a liability for him.

And here, there is Fenris. Just the sight of him sent Carver's chest all a-flutter. He still ... he does, still. He would. If Fenris just crooked a finger he'd come running. He knows this about himself. Walls it off. Tries to focus. There are more important things at stake here than his sorry love-life. He owes his knights better than to be distracted by a pair of green eyes that stare into his soul as though they know him. Because they do.

But. His knights.

They are none of them equipped to camp out here for the night, but they've got rations and lyrium enough (Carver was careful about the last, at least) to sustain themselves, if it's necessary. So they'll eat jerky and sleep on the ground in shifts. That's going to be a trial but it's manageable, at least.

He's wondering if he's going to get any sleep tonight when he senses someone watching him, and turns on instinct.

Part of him knows, but the rest of him is still surprised when it's true.

It's Fenris.

Maker, he looks good, like a drink of fresh water when Carver's been so thirsty. But he's not _Carver's_ Fenris and hasn't been for years, and Carver sets his feet, waiting for the hidden sting. No matter what he wants, Fenris is Fenris, and Carver cannot let the past overwhelm him now.

So he says, "Hey," instead of all the things he wants to say.

Fenris flicks his fingers over his hips, glancing away and then back. "I will confess I was surprised to meet with you here."

"Not half as surprised as I was. But I guess -- you came with Sebastian, right?"

A nod. "I have guarded him all the way from Kirkwall."

"And you came through the Vimmarks?" Carver's impressed. "How many of this lot were with you then?"

"All of them. More. We lost some in the passage, and others have gone their own way since."

Doubly impressed, then. Carver licks his lips, wondering what Fenris wants. Maker, it's good to talk to him, though, good just to look at him. Last time ... last time he'd been down in it, just a wreck of himself, and Fenris the only safe harbour to be had.

This time ... "I'm glad you're alive," he says.

"And I also, that you are." Fenris comes forward, light on his feet the way Carver remembers. His weak ankle's doing well, it seems, not a flinch in his step that Carver can see. "Sebastian told me that they imprisoned you in the Gallows for what Merrill and I did to you."

Oh, that _mess_. It feels so long ago, now. Carver shrugs, the weight of memory pressing on him. "Yeah. That happened."

"He told me that your brother tore the Kirkwall Chantry apart, in his attempt to get you back."

Carver wrinkles his nose. "That's not how I remember it." He doesn't remember much, really, just a jumble of things immediately before he sunk under the weight of lyrium deprivation. (But he remembers what Cullen said, that much burned into him as hard as the burn on his jaw.) A lot of it's gone now, maybe forever. He remembers some things, though. Like the other thing Cullen said. "Garrett's dead, anyway. For his sins."

It hurts to say it, because that means Carver's the last of them, the only one left. Father, Bethany, Mother, and Garrett. He's the only Hawke still alive. There's always Uncle Gamlen, of course, but it's not the same. He's an Amell, not a Hawke. Now it's just Carver at the end of things.

Sometimes he feels like he'd willingly trade himself for any of them. Even Garrett. Sometimes he's sick at his own relief that he's still here, when they're all gone on without him.

Fenris looks ... Carver doesn't know. His face makes a shape, anyway, whatever it is. "I ... am sorry. That this is how things have gone."

"You never liked my brother," Carver says, though he doesn't know why he's prodding this particular wound so hard.

"I am still sorry. Though I am glad that, of the two of you, it is _you_ who is here now. Still living."

Well, that's good, he supposes. But it's painful, and he doesn't want to talk about this now, maybe never. "Has Sebastian made up his mind yet? Or are we stuck here tonight?"

Fenris shifts his feet, frowning. "He is undecided. It seems likely we will all of us spend the night here." He glances over Carver's knights, and his frown intensifies. "You will need supplies. We do not have much, but there may be a little we can spare."

He wants to say no, that they'll be fine, but he knows he shouldn't. "I mean, if you can. I'd be grateful. And maybe once we get to Starkhaven proper the Chantry will ... actually, I can't speak for the Chantry."

He really can't. Fenris seems satisfied with it, for all that it's nothing. "I will see what I can find. Will you accompany me?"

There's no way Carver can refuse him.

Fenris goes from campfire to campfire, borrowing a little here and a little there. He seems confident in this, in a way Carver has never seen before. It's something of a shock that Fenris would willingly speak to so many people, that he knows them, that they greet him with smiles instead of suspicion. They are far more suspicious of Carver in his uniform, his Starkhaven colours. More than once he catches someone glaring at him, and at least one of them spits on his bootprints in the dirt. It's an old superstition, warding off evil, and Carver thinks, _I'm not a fucking mage,_ before he realises what he's thought and regrets it.

They're afraid of him. Well, they're mostly Kirkwallers, according to Fenris. Free Marchers, the lot of them, and he supposes he should be grateful they don't hate him simply for being Fereldan. That's a lot more familiar than this, but he's used to being hated, wherever he goes. Templar. Fereldan. Just not-from-around-here. Starkhaven's the only place he's ever felt fucking _welcome_ , after all. And even then, they only welcomed his robes, not him.

Carver watches Fenris go about his business, and he wonders what it must have been like for him all these years, an elf amongst so many humans. Here and now he's not the only elf by a long shot. Carver spots a couple of dwarves and one Qunari giant trailing a gaggle of children, and he wonders. Fenris seems ... comfortable here. He's never seemed that way before. He seems almost happy.

Good. Carver's glad for him, though he thinks on how it will be once they bring all of this lot into the city. Maybe Fenris can find a place there in which to be happy. Carver wants badly to help him find that place, but he's almost certain that he won't get a chance.

They're deep in the camp when Carver feels it. Just a brush of magic, just a touch, but he's been so sensitive since the whole lyrium-deprivation _thing_ , and he can't help leaning toward it.

One brush and then another. And _another_ , and he knows. It's not something he can ignore.

"Fenris," he says, and again when Fenris doesn't seem to hear-- " _Fenris_." 

Fenris turns to him. The tension must show in his face because Fenris leaves the discussion he's been so deep in to come up, leaning close. "What is it?"

"You've got mages in your camp," Carver says, but instead of what he's expecting -- the usual anger and thinly-veiled fear -- Fenris simply nods.

"Yes. They are ... useful." And then he frowns. "I have given them my protection. You cannot take them."

Maker's _balls_. This is ... he doesn't know what this is. He takes a deep breath, and, and, and he still doesn't know. "You know." Holy bleeding _shit_. "Fenris, they're _mages_."

Fenris frowns, guiding Carver away from the campfire where he's been talking. Begging supplies for _Carver's_ people, no less. He seems intent, and he says, "I know." He looks up, green eyes wide and clear, and Carver can feel the weight of his hand though the plate at his back. "You _cannot_ take them. Though ... they are dangerous."

Carver can't. He doesn't. Maker's _breath_ , this is unreal. "Are they Circle mages?" Fenris flinches and Carver ... oh shitting fuck. "Fenris, are they _Gallows_ mages?"

"Some of them. Most, perhaps. I have not asked." 

Gallows mages. Carver can't get his head around it but he has to. _Gallows_ mages, here, in this place. And he's a Gallows Templar, and he probably knows all of them.

"Then if they don't already know we're here they're about to find out," he says, thinking out loud. Circle trained mages, and Fenris knows, and has allowed them to stay. Has _given them his protection_. "They're not going to like this, not one bit."

"I know." He presses against Carver's side and it takes everything Carver has not to wrap an arm around him and pull him up tight. "I should ... it might be best if I speak to them. Before there is cause for a confrontation."

Before? There's cause _now_. Carver is cause enough, all on his own. And the thought of Fenris walking up to a bunch of trained mages to tell them not to worry about the Templars massing outside? It makes Carver's chest tighten until he can hardly breathe.

But Fenris looks so certain, and Carver trusts him (he still does, after everything, _with_ everything, oh, how can he not?) so he nods. "As you say."

He's so close Carver could reach out and touch his cheek. It would be so easy.

Fenris' eyes track over his face, lingering on the scar. Carver knows when people are looking at it, he's sensitive to that too, now. They get these _looks_ when they think he can't see them. But Fenris doesn't seem disgusted, or horrified, or anything like that. Just curious.

Carver puts the tips of his fingers to it, and tries out a smile. "Good thing I was never pretty, yeah?"

It's an awkward joke, and Fenris does not laugh. Instead he frowns. "How?"

"How did I get it? You can blame my brother for that."

Fenris' eyes narrow. "He swore to me he would never hurt you. I should never have believed him."

"I don't think he meant to," Carver says, though he doesn't really remember. But he can't imagine Garrett hurting him on purpose, not like this.

Fenris shakes his head, and then his eyes cut quick from side to side. Carver realises Fenris has backed him into the shadow of the tower, a little corner between it and a half-constructed wall. The ground is uneven and scattered with sharp stones that must be hell on bare elven feet, and they are effectively alone here, practically hidden.

Fenris crowds him in, hands coming up to chest-height and hovering there like moths.

" _Carver_ ," he says, and he sounds ... Andraste's Mercy he sounds like he used to, when he was sorry for something and wanted Carver to forgive him but didn't know how to ask. "I must know."

It's old habit to catch him by the elbows, to try to press some steadiness into him. "What is it?"

"Your Knight Captain. Cullen. Did he ... was it he who put you in that cell?"

Carver still doesn't know. He thinks maybe not. But he certainly didn't get Carver _out_ of it. And then he sent Carver away with the apprentices. _I have no use for you._ Carver remembers that, sharp as a knife cut. Maker, he doesn't know if he can ever forgive Cullen for that, cell or otherwise.

"Does it matter?"

Maybe he sounds as bitter as he feels, because Fenris flinches, his mouth turning down. But he shakes himself, his eyes flashing with determination. "Do you remember what I said to you? In the Fade?"

Carver isn't supposed to remember the Fade. He's a Templar, not a mage. But he remembers what happened when Fenris and Merrill killed Longing. Carver turned on them. He would have _attacked_ them. 

And Fenris stopped him.

"You said a lot of things." Carver flinches away from remembering all of them. Some things, though, he will never forget. "You said you were a fool." _You said you were afraid. You said you loved me, once._

"I am." Fenris lays the palms of his hands on Carver's breastplate, over the flaming sword, over his heart. "I am still a fool. And I am willing to make a fool of myself, for you."

It can't mean what he thinks it does. But it can't mean anything else.

"How do you plan to do that?" Carver asks, his mouth dry as a salt wind.

Fenris' eyes are the same as always, the same perfect green. "By offering you the opportunity to wound me as deeply as I wounded you. To reject me as harshly. I would deserve it."

Oh. It's poetic, in a way, and maybe Carver would have been petty enough, once, to do it. But Fenris is still _Fenris_. And Fenris is here. And Carver is still alive.

"I don't know what you're offering," he says, though he hopes. "You have to say it out loud."

Fenris closes his eyes, shuddering. "Yes. Carver, will you--"

But of course Carver can't have this.

The yell is loud enough to catch his attention. " _Knight Lieutenant!_ " It's Alistair, and he's running.

Carver jerks, and _for fuck's sake_. " _What_? What's so bloody important?" It better not be a fistfight or something equally stupid. He'll tear whoever's responsible a new arsehole.

Alistair spots them and jogs over. "Ser!" Then he seems to realise what he's seeing. "Oh! Ah, I see you're busy." 

It's an effort to let go of Fenris and step away from him. Of course Alistair wouldn't be here if it wasn't important but his timing is fucking terrible.

"Er." Alistair glances back over his shoulder and his resolve firms. "It's the woods. They've been niggling at me ever since we got here, and I'm pretty sure now. It's not going away. It's only getting worse."

Carver didn't like the look of them either, but still. "What's your point?"

"Darkspawn," he says, and it's like ice in Carver's gut. 

_Darkspawn_. 

He has a sudden vivid memory of the stench of them, of the sound Bethany made when she hit the ground, of the blood in his mouth at Ostagar. It takes him a moment to unlock his jaw.

"Are you sure?" Of course he's sure. "What do we do?" For a moment Alistair stares at him. "Come on, you're still a Grey Warden, right? _Alistair!_ "

Maybe it puts something in his spine. Maybe that something was always there, waiting for the right moment. 

Maybe it's the darkspawn. Carver probably won't ever know.

Burt whatever it is Alistair clears his throat. "Right. Well. Here's what we do."

#

Sebastian is skeptical. "It seems convenient that this would happen just when you want me to go to Starkhaven."

It's a fair point, but Carver doesn't have time for it. "We need to leave. Unless you want to watch your lot get tainted and rot to death from the inside." That's if they survive an attack at all. "We don't have to go to Starkhaven, but where else is there?"

Still, Sebastian seems unconvinced. He looks to Fenris, and Carver shouldn't be surprised. They're friends. They've come all this way. And Fenris seems to be the pin holding these people together, unlikely as it sounds.

He _is_ surprised, though. Sebastian has never struck him as someone who listened overmuch to anyone else, too void-bent on doing things his own way.

What Fenris says, though, all quiet and firm, is, "I will not risk Tully."

Immediately, Sebastian nods. "Then we go. Maker protect us all."

It's not that easy, of course. The refugees don't want to pack up and move on, they've already settled in. And at this late stage it means travelling into the night. There are children, pregnant women, their elderly and infirm, who can't move quickly. And they've got cook-fires going, dinner on the trivet. (Alistair has said that this is a liability. The smoke and the scent will only attract the Darkspawn all the faster. Just talking about it makes Carver's bowels tremble. He musn't let it show.)

And these are Free Marchers, not Fereldans. Carver remembers Lothering, and how long people hung on there, refusing to run ahead of the horde. He shudders to think of what happened to the ones who waited too long, given what happened to his own family.

So he climbs up onto the back of a cart and does what he knows: he yells at them.

"Maybe you've heard of Darkspawn, yeah? Well I fought them at Ostagar, in the Feredan Blight. I saw what they can do. It's worse than the stories. Whatever you're thinking, it's _worse than that_."

The refugees gather around, listening mostly out of curiosity, but some of them are starting to look worried.

"You've heard they eat babies, right? Well they do. They eat _people_. While they're still alive, sometimes. And let's say they don't kill you. Let's say you just get wounded. Well, that wound is going to rot you until you'll wish you were dead. And then some merciful son-of-a-bitch might just put you out of your misery. But if not you'll just keep on rotting until your mind is gone. Do you think I'm kidding?" he demands, stabbing a finger at a couple of young men smirking and nudging one another. "Do you think this is fucking funny? Darkspawn killed my sister. She was _lucky_. But we had to watch a Knight sicken down to _nothing_ , and then his wife put the knife in him herself. Because he begged her for it."

Now they're listening. Fenris is staring at him with this strange look on his face, and Carver can't help but think, _When this is over, you and me have unfinished business, you slippery bastard._ He almost loses his thread, has to think fast to remember where he was going.

"So you can stay here and get eaten, or you can get your shit together and come along with us. Because I'm not keeping my best knights here to die guarding a bunch of piss-poor idiots who are too stupid to know when they need to move!"

That's it, that's all he's got. He glares at them, daring them to ignore him.

"How do we know there's Darkspawn?" someone yells. A woman, holding a bow in one hand. She's got a hard look to her face and she doesn't appear lazy or stupid, just weary, as if the world has thrown too much at her. Darktown, if he's any judge. Hard nut to crack.

"Because we've got a Grey Warden," he says, and Alistair is mouthing, 'No!' at him but he hauls him up onto the back of the cart all the same. "He fought the Blight alongside the Hero of Ferelden. So he fucking knows what he's talking about."

Alistair has gone white as a sheet. Maybe this was a terrible idea.

"Er, hello," he says, and Carver thinks, yeah, terrible idea. "Listen, I know it sounds unlikely, but there are definitely Darkspawn in that forest and, and I don't think anyone here wants to find out that it's true the hard way. Right?"

Maker's fucking balls, Alistair's even worse at this than he is.

"You're just another Templar!" The woman sounds disgusted. "How do we know you're a Grey Warden at all?"

Carver actually doesn't have an answer for that, and he glances around at the crowd. They're undecided, and fuck, all of this is time they don't have, time for the Darkspawn to find them.

He's going to have to make good on his threat, get Fenris and Sebastian and whoever they can wrangle and hurry them _out_ of here. And leave the rest to die. Maybe. Alistair could be wrong after all.

Carver doesn't think he is. And he _can't_ leave them to die.

Fuck, he doesn't know what to _do_.

Sister Leliana is glaring daggers at him, and she seems to be on the verge of climbing up to have her own go at this, when Carver spies Ser Uldred pushing his way to the front. He's got one of the refugees with him, a big man with a big scar over one white eye. Carver winces. That could have been him.

"Go on," Uldred says, loud enough to carry. "Tell them what you told me."

The man grimaces, but he faces them. " _I_ fought at Ostagar." He's a Fereldan refugee, then. And now a Kirkwall refugee too. Poor bastard. "I know you." He jerks his chin at Alistair, and there's something in his eyes that takes Carver a moment to understand. He knows that look. Maker, he knows how it feels when his own face does that. He knows this painful loyalty. "You're King Cailan's bastard brother."

It sounds awful, put like that, but it's true. Carver drags his gaze to Alistair's face, and finds him ... sad, more than anything.

"Yes," he says. And then he adds, "I'm sorry. I don't remember you."

The man doesn't seem to care much about that. "You were making Wardens in the camp," he says. "You came past, with the girl. Saved one of our Mabari from the taint. Can you do that for us?"

Alistair looks to Carver, his face all over hurt, and Carver puts a hand on his shoulder, for all the good it might do. "No," Alistair says. "No, it doesn't work that way."

The man nods, resigned. "Then we'd best get the fuck away from those woods."

Alistair sighs. "Yes, that would be _splendid_." 

Carver wants to smack him now, because that's no good to anyone, but it seems to have the required effect, all the same. The refugees mill like ants, suddenly spurred to _do something_. Good. Fucking _finally_.

They climb down. Sebastian and Fenris are waiting for them, Sister Leliana close behind.

"That was well done, Alistair," she says quietly. "In the end."

Alistair perks up a little, though he's still so pale. "Thanks, I think."

"We must make haste," Sebastian says, catching Carver's elbow. Carver is a little mad at him still, for how long it took to convince him that this was necessary and for not being the one to get up on the cart, but he tries not to show it.

"Yeah, we fucking must. Get your people moving, if you can."

Sebastian nods, and turns to Fenris. "Come with me?"

Fenris -- he's been staring at Carver like, like Carver has no idea what, this _whole_ time -- tears his gaze away. "What?" he shakes himself. "Yes." But he looks back before he goes. "I _will_ speak with you again," he says, and then he's gone, trailing Sebastian like a dark shadow.

Carver breathes out. Fenris still ... Fenris wants ... something. Carver's pretty sure he knows what it is, and he's not stupid enough to let it get away when it's _so fucking close_.

He'll have it. Once they've got Sebastian's people to safety, he's going to pin that fucking elf down for a very pointed chat, and then.

He doesn't know what will happen then, but his heart flutters against his ribs, like a bird trying to get free of a cage. It feels so light. Maybe. If the Maker wills it then _maybe_.

Then he hears it. The twang and zip of an arrow let fly from a bowstring. And then a scream.

He runs toward it. The archer is one of Gavriel's, and he's got another shaft knocked when Carver finds him, not yet drawn all the way but ready. "Came out of the trees, ser." He glances at Carver, his face all over tense. Carver can't remember his name. "I got one, dead in the eye. But the other got away."

The body is a hump in the swaying grass, two hundred yards off.

Carver doesn't need to look to know, dread building in his gut, but he must ask. "What is it?"

"Nothing I've ever seen before, ser. A _monster_."

Oh _fuck_.

"Well shot," he says, and the man looks grateful for it. "Stay alert for more."

Darkspawn. Scouts, and one gone back to report.

They're out of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tweaked a bit a couple of days after posting, just FYI. No plot changes, just some flavour/motivation.


	51. Chapter 51

Carver tells him to take the refugees and run.

Fenris bolts, but not to obey. Carver does not rule him, no matter how close they had come to ... but even if they had, Fenris is his own, not one of Carver's Knights and not his slave. Instead he has to choose.

He chooses Orana. "You must run," he tells her. She does not stop to gather their things, simply swings Tully up into her arms, eyes wide with fear. "Do not stop running until you reach Starkhaven, or the darkspawn are dead, or I find you. Do you understand?"

"Of course, brother." And then, "Be safe. Return to us."

She speaks in Tevene and he answers her the same. "Be safe. I will find you."

He kisses Tully's startled face and lets them go.

As he moves through the camp he repeats the injunction to run. He chooses those who have listened to him in the past, and instructs them to pass the message on. Many of them linger, trying to salvage what little they have, but he does not have time for them, yells at them to leave their belongings and take their children and _go_. It is only so effective.

He finds Sebastian arguing with the Chantry sister, his face dark with anger in the fading light of the sun.

"I will not _save_ myself if I cannot save my people!"

"They are not your only people," she tells him, calm as a stone. "The bulk of your people are in Starkhaven."

"I would be a poor ruler for them if I chose to abandon those in my charge _now_ to save my sorry skin! No," he tells her, holding up a hand. "Do not try me again. I will stand between them and the wickedness of darkspawn. It is the Maker's Will."

"Sebastian," Fenris says, urgency building in him. "We must go. We must go _now_."

Sebastian rounds on him, such a betrayed look upon his face. "You too, Fenris?"

"No. I agree. We _will_ stand between them and the darkspawn, but we must go. This is not where we should make our stand."

He tosses his head, willfully defiant, and Fenris cannot help but be glad of it, to see the fire in his eyes when it has been burnt down to embers for so long.

"Come," Fenris says. "Let us form a rear-guard for their retreat."

And Sebastian nods, finally satisfied. "Aye. Will you stand with me, my friend?"

Though it may kill them both. "Yes. Unto death, if need be."

There are those amongst the refugees who likewise wish to stay, to defend their loved ones, and Fenris cannot tell them no. Not when he means to do the same. Not when he needs them. Those with bows go with Sebastian, of course, and Fenris is left with the remainder. Farmers with axes and staves, fathers and mothers and others armed with nothing more than belt knives and cleavers and crowbars. They are hungry and frightened and determined, and Fenris will not show them how he fears this will end. If their lives must be spent to protect the rest, then so be it. 

This is what must be. He will sacrifice them all to keep Tully safe. Maker forgive his sins.

Then there are the Templars, in all their shining steel. They form up in semi-orderly ranks, and Carver's voice rings out over them, cursing them into place and keeping them there with the strength of his command.

How glorious he is. Fenris cannot help the surge of pride that rises in him, that this man, the one he has loved for longer than he has known it himself, has become _this_. A Knight. A leader of men. A bastion against the coming dark.

And then he senses her close by, the tug of magic on his brands unmistakable.

"Varania," he says.

She does not smile. He is grateful for that. "You will need us, brother. Do you trust us?"

Does he? He has no choice.

"If you will trust in me." A memory of her breaks open in his head like a rotten melon: Varania, small and skinny with hair as red as a sunrise, clinging to him as though he was her whole world. How she smiled for him. How he loved her then.

The way she tells it, he died for her once.

"Come, sister," he says, though he knows she is not the sister he might die for today.

#

The refugees make bad time, and Carver lets his knights march slow with the scouts ranged out behind. They form a wall, bracing the refugees in. If they're attacked from the front it will all be over, but Alistair says that Darkspawn aren't smart enough for that. Or at least he says they aren't patient enough. They'll come up by the shortest route and they will not be stealthy about it. Unless they come up out of the ground. Carver's gut ices over at the thought but Alistair just laughs, a wry little bark, and says, "But if they do that we're dogfood, anyway."

What a shitty thing to cling to. Carver tries not to think of it, as the sun goes down and the night pulls in. At least there's no chance to be cold, on the move, but they marched through the day to get here and they're tired. All of them, knights and civilians both. The fear of death is a sharp motivator, though, and it's at least an hour before people start to lag.

Carver yells at them. It seems to be all he can do, short of picking them up and hurrying them along himself. It works for a bit, and he thinks they're going to be all right. 

But then he hears it. 

The war horn goes through him like a knife, like ice in his blood, and he can practically smell them. It freezes him there on the hillside, and what he'd give not to have to stand and face them.

At least they'll have the high ground.

"Halt!" he yells. "Get in formation!"

They haven't drilled this as well as they should. Templars shouldn't have to. Normally they're a squad facing down a couple of frightened mages, and that's it. Neat and contained. That's what Templars are for, that and being big scary lumps in armour. But this? This is army stuff, and Carver was never an officer in the army.

Alistair, though. Alistair has stuck by his side like glue, for all the gaggle of hopefuls trailing him. They've got it into their heads that Alistair is some kind of hero. They're not wrong, technically, but Carver doesn't like them in amongst his ranks. He doesn't want to get them killed.

When he said as much, though, Alistair just shrugged. "They'll die, one way or another. Better to take the help that's offered." And when Carver protested this Alistair gave him a hard look. "It's the way the Wardens do it. Don't turn down assistance freely given. Maker, the Wardens would feed the whole of them to the darkspawn if it meant _winning_. Nothing's more important than stopping the spread of the taint."

Carver supposes he's right, but he doesn't have to like it.

And then there's Fenris and Sebastian, who've brought their own ragtag squads to get underfoot. He's too ragged to yell at _them_ , and he's pretty sure neither of them will heed him anyway. Maker, he told Fenris to run and Fenris didn't listen and here they are.

He doesn't want to see Fenris die today. So he won't let that happen.

And now, warhorns. Of course they'd come after sunset. _Of course_ they'd come when it's too dark to see. Gavriel and Sebastian are arguing the merits of starting a small blaze, to shoot flaming arrows over the oncoming darkspawn and shed a little light, but it would make them too visible, give them too much away.

Can darkspawn see in the dark? Fuck, they probably can.

The horn sounds again, closer, and Carver is ready for them, ice in his gut and his hands shaking, and he can't afford either.

And then there's a rush of magic behind him and the sky over the plain bursts into light.

For a moment all he sees are stars, falling from the sky, but where they fall they stick and keep burning, and then he _sees_.

Darkspawn. Every bit as ugly as he remembers, and so many, and his bowels go to water.

Then the first fireball hits, scattering 'spawn like ash.

First, because there's another, and then something he doesn't recognise, a great pool spreading across the turf and tripping the darkspawn to the ground. Then another fireball and the whole thing goes up in flames.

Holy _shit_.

Someone casts an ice storm, off to the left, and someone else (he thinks it's another mage, the magic feels different) drops a lightning storm into it and it's all over snow and sparks and death.

Some of his templars jerk back, and some look set to run _into_ it, so he yells, "Hold your tits! Give the mages room!"

Because he knows these are the mages' big spells, the flashy ones, and they'll be out of mana soon, and there's so many darkspawn.

Something snatches a swathe of them up, dragging them off their feet and into a knot together. The magic is familiar, and he thinks, _Keili. That's Keili back there._

It's too close to the line. Carver turns to Lachlan, gone stiff as an icework by his side. "Hold the line," he says, and when Lachlan just stares at him he growls, "Hold the fucking _line_! Protect our mages!" 

Lachlan salutes him, looking grim, and barks out a "Ser!" 

And then he has to go, charging out into the fray and trusting the mages not to singe him to a crisp.

They're Circle mages, _Gallows_ mages, not untrained apostates who don't know any better. He hopes they hate the 'spawn more than they hate templars, but it's a thin hope all the same. 

Then he's in it, and he doesn't have time to think too much.

This he can do. Cutting down an enemy that wants him dead is so easy it's like breathing, no remorse, no hesitation, no room for either anyway. He takes out one, another, another, and he loses count, slashing them in half when he can, taking a chunk out of them when it's the best he can do. One of them goes to ice right in front of him -- he's thinking, _too fucking close_ , even as he smashes the thing to bits. A knot of them get up in his face and he Smites them hard, he's never before managed a Smite so intense nor so big. They rock back, stunned, and Carver takes them down with methodical hits, just one, and another, and another.

And he's not alone. 

Maglene's behind him, picking up his slack, and he's mad at her for a heartbeat -- why did she follow? She should have stayed back -- but then she takes the legs out from under a rotten gibbering thing that Carver doesn't see until it's too late, and then he can only be glad of her.

There's the zip and thud of arrows all around him. He lifts his sword only to see his target jerk back, a shaft stuck from one grotesque eye-socket, another thudding into the one behind that Carver didn't see.

And. There's Fenris, a glowing fucking lyrium elf scything through darkspawn like wheat-stalks, a beacon in the dark. Not that it's strictly _dark_ anymore, those magelights glowing up from the ground and things on fire on every side. But still, Fenris, moving through them like water flowing over rocks.

He catches sight of Alistair out of the corner of his eye, and Carver's never seen him this focussed, never seen him give his all like this. Must be the 'spawn, and his warden training, and Maker, he's fantastic like this, mowing them down like he was born to it.

He doesn't have long to look, though, because Fenris _flares_ , and the 'spawn around him stagger but they're _surrounding_ him and Carver won't let that stand, charging in to knock them down.

He's half expecting Fenris to acknowledge him but Fenris simply makes room, accommodating him but keeping his eyes on the enemy. They fall into a rhythm, and this is all Carver's ever been good at, swinging a sword around, and it takes all his concentration.

Still. Fenris is Fenris, and Carver knows him too well, knows where he's going and how to fill the gaps he leaves behind. Carver's never been much of a dancer, but this feels the way he thinks dancing should -- natural, without thought, moving about another person as though they're a part of you -- except that now one false move will get him killed.

He's acutely aware that he'd got out of a sickbed that morning, and his hands don't shake on his swordhilt but only because he's willing them not to.

It's going ... well? He has no idea, but they're making a dent, and he has time to be hopeful. For a heartbeat. But. He hears that roar and he remembers, and the memory is enough to make him stumble.

A fucking _ogre_. Of course they have an ogre. 

Maker, the thing's _huge_ , he'd forgotten they were that big. He can't stop staring at it, backing up from the thing because ... it's an _ogre_. Just like the one that killed his sister. Just like the one that killed his king.

It looks at him and roars, and he hears his own death in it, clear as day.

"Look sharp!" 

That's Alistair, ducking under one of the swinging arms, and Carver just has time to throw himself out of the way.

Hitting the dirt in plate _hurts_ , but not as much as being tagged by one of those fists would. It takes him a moment to roll up, find his sword and his feet, and then he sees Alistair again, up behind the thing, attacking its ankle.

No, the tendon. Alistair lands a blow and the thing _howls_ in pain, dropping to one knee and swatting at him but he dodges easily. "Get the other one!"

Carver takes a breath. The ogre's wounded now but that only makes it more dangerous. Still, it's immobilised, and if he can just get in there, they have a chance. He can hear the clang of steel behind him -- Uldred's men, he thinks -- and this? This is what he has to do.

It's harder than it looks, playing tag with those fists, and he has to win every time but that _thing_ only has to get him once. Still, he sees his opening and charges for it, bringing his sword down as hard as he can. The blade goes through the leather wrappings and all the way to the bone, jarring up his arm, and it's a miracle his sword doesn't bite because then he'd be stuck stupidly tugging it out when the ogre swipes at him.

Instead he has a heartbeat to stagger back, thinking, _There, you fucker!_ and then he gets to watch, dumbfounded, as Alistair charges _up the side of the fucking thing_ to _jam his sword through the base of its skull_.

It comes down like a felled tree, and Alistair just jumps off, light as a feather, and he holds up a fist as if he expects Carver to slam his gauntlet into it.

So Carver does, and it feels incredibly good.

"All in a day's work for a Warden," Alistair quips, and Carver could _strangle_ him, but they _did_ it. They killed an ogre today.

They killed an ogre.

Bethany would have been proud.

But then -- another roar, and a second hard on the heels of it.

Two more.

Carver sets his feet, ready to move on the first one. They have to do it again, now, and again after that, and he has to get their attention long enough for, maybe, the archers to pepper them with arrows. He doesn't know if that will kill one but he's keen to find out, and he bellows at them, hoping to draw them to him.

The closest one turns to him, and he feels it again, his death in this moment, in the eyes of a thing already dead, lumbering toward him.

But. Someone darts out of nowhere, dragging a sword across the ogre's knee beneath the joint, a shield raised to smack it in the face. The thing howls and collapses back, and before it can slam its fist into the silver-armoured figure at its feet another runs up its side to bring a massive two-hander down on its spine.

The ogre screams, wavers, and goes down.

Carver stares. And then he understands what he's seeing.

He knows that armour, blue and silver and _so welcome_ , and the wash of relief that comes over him is like the warmth of the sun.

They're Wardens. The Grey Wardens have come.

Maker bless them all.


	52. Chapter 52

It's over pretty quickly after that. There are a half dozen wardens, and each of them is worth a half dozen Templars in themselves. Carver hates knowing that, but he's so glad of them he can't be resentful. They're _Wardens_. Heroes. They're everything he's always wanted to be.

But now he's something else, and he helps mop up the darkspawn while his blood still runs with battle-fury. It'll be over soon enough and he'll pay for this -- it's going to hurt him later. Later can wait. He needs to move _now_ so he does, though it's eating him, stroke by stroke.

So he's tired and wired and at the end of his everything when the little one tags him. It's just a burst of pain and then he takes the thing's head off. Immediately he senses magic, dark and corrupt, working in the ranks of his enemies, and he angles toward it because he remembers the scant training he got at Ostagar and he might not know for sure but he's got a pretty good idea, all the same.

An Emissary. It's in the middle of working some spell, so Carver charges it down, Smiting with his hit, just in case. The thing goes over easily, and his sword cuts it messily in half.

He looks up into the twisted face of a huge 'spawn up on him, already in mid-swing, and he thinks, _This is it._

But the blow never lands. Lyrium and rage explodes up along Carver's side, and the spawn is slammed back into the ground. For a moment he doesn't know what's happened, but then he sees Fenris, chest heaving as he stands over the body of the thing.

Oh. Fuck. He thinks, _I was supposed to protect_ you.

But it doesn't matter, he's alive and Fenris is alive, and the relief is like burning up inside. 

Fenris is _alive_.

Fenris turns, and he's so angry he's fucking _glowing_ , but--

"That was _reckless_! You could have been killed!."

\--Maker, how glorious he is.

"Chew me out after," Carver says, but Fenris simply glances over his shoulder and sneers. Fuck, Carver's missed that sneer. How can you miss a sneer? He doesn't know but he has, all the same.

"It _is_ after." Fenris stalks over to him, and Carver backs up a step because, because Fenris looks like he's going to kill him.

Fenris is right, though. The battle is _over_. There's no more darkspawn, except for a few dark mounds shuddering on the ground, but he can already see knights moving amongst them, slitting throats and severing heads. It's done.

Fenris grabs him by the gorget and fucking _shakes_ him. "Such a foolish, idiotic, _human_ thing to have done," he snarls, and he's so beautiful Carver can't help himself. He just braces an arm about Fenris' waist and leans in to kiss him.

It feels like kissing the sun, hot and immediate and unforgettable. Fenris growls, putting his teeth to Carver's lip and biting him hard. It's not a 'no' though, so Carver lets him, gathering Fenris up against his chest. This. It's over. He can _have_ this, oh Maker.

"Ask me again," he begs, pressing kisses to Fenris' mouth. "Ask me what you were going to ask, back at the tower."

Fenris blinks at him, eyes huge and dark in the flickering light of the fires. He's wild and angry and everything Carver wants.

And he checks his anger long enough to ask. "Will you let me court you, Carver Hawke?"

Carver chuckles in his throat, flush with battle-lust and so fucking glad he can barely breathe. "Yeah. Yeah, you can do that."

The battle catches up with him then, every ache and pain letting itself be known. He groans, wavering, but he takes the time to clean his sword and sheathe it before he tries to stagger back to his knights. Fenris comes up under his shoulder, taking his weight. "Are you injured?"

"No, I don't think ... I just need a potion." He pulls a pick-me-up from his belt and downs it, grimacing against the taste. 

His arm is stinging, though, and he should check that out. Or just take a health potion too. He does _that_ , and Fenris frowns.

"Then you _are_ injured. Let me see."

"I'm fine." He runs a hand down Fenris' side, though, suddenly concerned. "Are _you_ okay? How's the ankle?"

"My ankle is _fine_. You worry too much," Fenris says without a trace of irony as he guides Carver toward the knights waiting for him.

"What's the damage?" he asks, when he finds Lachlan.

The boy is wild-eyed and bloody, and Carver hopes he didn't get any of it in his mouth. " _Ser_ ," he says, and for a terrible moment Carver's thinks he's going to burst into tears. But he chokes down his emotions, and says, "None of the darkspawn got through. A third of the civilian fighters went down. Four knights, so far. Pleury, Harrison, Marco, and Argus. And a dozen injuries." 

He's no time to mourn them. A dozen injuries against Darkspawn could mean a dozen slow deaths. "See that they all get medical attention, and the civilians too," he says, and then, because Lachlan looks like he might quiver to bits at any moment, "You held the line."

Lachlan's chin goes up, mouth wrenched into a rough shape. He's so fucking stubborn, this kid, and he's _Carver's_. "Aye, ser."

Carver claps him on the shoulder, shaking him a bit. "Good work, Knight Corporal."

Lachlan swallows. "I just did my duty, ser." He doesn't seem to know what to do with himself, so Carver gives him a little push.

"Keep the men from going after those mages, all right? I need to have a chat with them. And make sure no-one's hiding an injury. Those things can fester and kill you fast as thought."

Lachlan salutes him and goes, and Carver stares after him. Yeah, that one's his. Carver won't give him up easy, not again.

He hasn't forgotten about Fenris hovering by his side, but still the rumble of Fenris' snort is enough to drag him back to the here-and-now. "He admires you."

"He's a little shit, most of the time," Carver says, but he can't help how fond he sounds.

It doesn't seem to do much for Fenris. "He is handsome, in his way."

Oh, _please_. "Bit young for my blood." He presses his face into Fenris' hair, the way Fenris used to like, to whisper against his ear. "Don't get jealous. I'm still waiting to be courted."

It's the right thing to say because Fenris pinches him, and ow! Carver had forgotten how sharp his gauntlets are. "Shall I woo you with poetry? Flowers? Perhaps a bottle of Orlesian perfume?"

Carver laughs. "Oh, sure. All of that." He tries to focus, though he's fuzzy around the edges. What's next? Sebastian? No, the mages. "Come be diplomatic with me," he says, tugging Fenris toward the afterimage of magic burned into his brain.

He picks up Uldred on the way, and Uldred has a more complete list of injuries for him. It's a bit over a dozen, it turns out, and more amongst the civilian squads. The knights with medical training are doing their best, but some of the wounds are already showing black around the edges and Carver thinks, _Well, that's that. Can't heal the fucking taint, after all._ Then he takes Uldred with him, because Uldred, at least, has dealt with mages before, and he's a cool head in a crisis.

The mages are up on the crest of the hill, arguing amongst themselves. Even a fool could tell what they are -- half of them are still full of mana and he can see staves in their hands. He feels the cool minty gust of someone down amongst Fenris' lot, busily healing people, and Carver worries about that. 'People' can be violently ungrateful, after all.

One of the ones on the crest have stuck a mage-light on the end of their staff and it casts an eerie blue glow over their tired and dirty faces.

He sighs. They're rubbish at hiding. Though, regular Templars are mostly rubbish at finding them.

They spot him coming up the hill and he feels a ripple of magic run through them. They're wary. He doesn't blame them. They're Gallows trained, and his armour is the stuff of their nightmares, after all. He can't help that, but he can take refuge behind Fenris, and hope that they trust in Fenris' precarious 'protection'.

"Do not be afraid," Fenris calls up. "I have given you my word and I mean to keep it."

Of course, Carver's seen Fenris break his word to a mage before. He wonders if they know how Fenris hates them, and fears them, and wishes them every last one in ashes. Probably not. But then, they probably think Carver's the one who hates them, so it evens out in the end.

"I'm just here to talk," Carver says, holding up a hand. "No-one's getting Smited or dragged off in chains, so just hold onto your fireballs, all right?"

They don't seem to know what to make of that, but no-one toasts him so it's a start.

"Thanks for that," he adds, feeling grateful and generous. They saved his skin. He'd be down a lot more knights without them. Maybe dead himself. They'd never have held the line. "I appreciate that you could have just run, instead. So ... thank-you."

They're muttering amongst themselves. He recognises a couple, beneath the grime and their low-pulled cowls.

Should he say hello? "Mage Jarissa, Mage Liam. You got out of Kirkwall okay, then. Is Enchanter Keili with you?"

This more than anything seems to put the cat amongst the pigeons, and there's some back-and-forthing before, wonder of wonders, Keili pushes to the front. She takes one look at him and sighs, wiping her cheek with the heel of her hand. 

"Ser Carver," she says. "Of course it's you." She sounds tired but determined. Her cowl is down, her hair coming free from her braids in messy wisps, blood bright red soaking the hems of her sleeves, and he's never thought her so beautiful as she is in this moment, nor so terrifying. "Do you mean to take us prisoner?"

Does he? He can't do that, not after what they did. Not after what has been done to them, in the Gallows, and all over Thedas. Not after what he's let happen, when he could do nothing. Now, though, he can do something. Still. "I'm a Templar. It's my duty to take you in. But I can't count in the dark. Guess we'll have to wait til dawn to find out how many of you there are, after all."

Keili nods solemnly. She knows him better than the rest, at least. "And for those who are here, come dawn? Do Starkhaven Templars treat with mages better than the Gallows?"

Starkhaven doesn't have a rutting _Circle_. But. Tristram's doing his damnedest to hang on to the apprentices, and Carver will lead a fucking _coup_ before he lets things get as bad as they did in Kirkwall. Tristram might be on the verge of it already, if his muttered complaints about Callion are more than just the usual Templar grumblings. And Tristram doesn't have Cullen's patience. With the added pressure of harrowed mages such as these, who knows what he'll do?

He glances at Uldred, but the man's impassive as the earth. Still, Carver knows now what he has to say.

" _I_ do. You all know me. And you remember Ser Tristram, yeah? Well, he's Knight Captain here. Right now we've got a couple dozen Kirkwall-trained apprentices in the compound who need someone to get them up to scratch before they explode, and no-one but Templars to do it. And you have my _word_ that I'll look out for you. Each and every one. If you'll trust the word of a Templar."

They look doubtful, but then--

"I'll come with you, Ser Carver." 

Oh, Maker. He's so thin, so gaunt, and with that brand hidden beneath a cowl he looks ... still dead-eyed, and not himself. Carver has to swallow hard. "Hey, Selwyn. Never thought I'd see you again."

He doesn't smile. Of course he doesn't. But he's alive. "Nor I you. Yet here we are." He cocks his head, more like a bird than a person, but Carver knows he _is_ a person. Just not the Selwyn he remembers. A new person, perhaps. "Do you have use for Tranquil in your compound?"

Not yet. "Well, we're not making any new ones, so, yeah."

He doesn't mean it as a promise -- he means they don't have a _brand_ , he doesn't even know if any of the Starkhaven knights know how -- but he sees at once how they take it. Shit. That's not ... it's too late, the words are out there, and Carver can't take them back without wrecking whatever this is they're making here.

"Think about it," he says. "I'll come back to you in the morning."

He leaves them there, and there's a raw spot between his shoulders the whole way down the hill but no bolt of lightning. That's good, right?

"Get someone to keep an eye on them," Carver says quietly to Uldred. "Someone who doesn't have an itchy sword-hand. I don't give a shit if they make a run for it, just make sure no-one takes a blade to them. All right?"

Uldred harrumphs a bit. "So, that'll be Geary, then? And your Maglene?" 

"She's not _my_ Maglene," Carver protests, squeezing his arm where it aches. He stops to breathe, and he's still overheated from the battle, needs to get out of his armour and into a bath. No chance of that any time soon, though, so he sucks it up and gets on with it. "Yeah, sure. Someone needs to start burning those corpses, too. They stink to high heaven."

"On it, ser," Uldred says, saluting, and turning on his heel.

What next?

Grey Wardens. Carver has to thank them. Without them ... he doesn't dare think.

"Should you rest?" Fenris asks when he stumbles. "You are unsteady."

"In a bit." 

He follows the beckoning silver-and-blue, only to find a mage arguing with a couple of his own fucking knights. 

The mage, the Grey Warden, has his hands out like a warning, but the knights are too stupid to see it. "I don't think I'll answer any of your questions. Now, piss off." It would sound better if he wasn't visibly shaking. Anger or fear? Carver's betting on fear, his haunted look only too familiar.

Carver groans. Andraste at the _stake_.

"You're an apostate," says Ser Carver-doesn't-know-him-from-apples. Full points for observation, he thinks; the Warden has a staff on his back and his blue-and-silver tabard is cut long, obviously hinting at robes. And he's got magic in him, banked for now but threatening. All the same, plenty of Templars might walk right past him because they're _idiots_ in _bucket hats_.

"I'm a Grey Warden, thank-you very much!" the man says, and he doesn't back up or reach for his staff, but the magic bubbles and _fuck_ this is going to go south if left untended.

So. "Leave the Grey Warden alone," Carver says, stepping up beside the knights and eyeballing them hard. "Wardens are exempt from apostasy, and you know it as well as I do." 

"Ser," one of them protests.

"Did I just give you an order?" Carver snaps, no time for this. "If not, I'm sure I can find a penance for you." They mutter out their 'yes, ser's and then they're gone, unhappy about it but out of the way.

The Warden gives him a grateful look. "Thank-you. I'll just be--"

But Carver's not done with him. "Knight Lieutenant Carver," he says, offering the man his hand. "I wanted to thank _you_ for the rescue, tonight."

The mage gapes at him. Then he accepts Carver's hand. "Levyn," he says.

Carver shakes and lets go, tucking his hands behind his back. "Mage Warden Levyn?"

Levyn laughs, self-conscious and fluttery. "Oh, just Levyn. We don't really do _ranks_. Much." He eyes Carver with thinly disguised interest. "You're Fereldan, aren't you?"

Everyone can always tell. "Born and raised."

"You're a long way from home, then," he says, smiling tentatively and ... is he _flirting_?

Carver opens his mouth, not sure what to say, but Fenris simply reaches up to wrap a hand around his bicep, leaning up against the side of him. He even flickers a little, dangerously, and Carver clears his throat. "I suppose I am. Listen, I've got men and women wounded by the 'spawn. Is there anything you can do for them? Any warden magic? At least ... to let me know which ones aren't going to make it."

Somewhere between Levyn's wide-eyed stare at Fenris and his ferocious blush, he manages to meet Carver's eye. "I ... probably can't do much. But I can take a look."

"I'd be grateful," Carver says.

Levyn looks him over, and sighs. "All right. Show me your wounded, then. But get ready to cut some throats, if it's necessary."

The wounded are being laid out in rows, and Carver hates this part. He remembers this from Ostagar, men and women slowly dying and nothing to be done. It had scared the shit out of him then, and he remembers someone bitching about the Wardens doing nothing, about one Warden in particular who'd recommended mercy-killing the lot of them. "Cold-hearted bastards," the someone (who? No-one important and they're dead now, anyway) had said, but there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then and Carver ... it _would_ be a mercy, if there's no hope.

He watches Levyn kneel down and brush a little magic into each moaning collection of flesh and bones, and it's so arbitrary. This one's been gutted, nasty and ragged, and Levyn just gets one of the knights to hold his insides together and Heals him, and stands up, hands flicking fastidiously over his robes. Apparently he's going to be fine, with a bit more mundane attention. 

But there's a woman with an arrow graze on her shoulder who's vomiting into the grass, and Levyn barely touches her before he's pulling away to catch Carver's eye. "It will take her days to die, but she will," he whispers. Carver looks to Fenris, and Fenris nods. Maybe Fenris knows if she has family. Maybe Fenris can take care of it. Otherwise Carver's going to have to offer her a choice.

It's getting colder as the night deepens. Carver shivers inside his armour, suddenly freezing. It makes him itch, all up his arm, all the way to his shoulder, and he catches himself squeezing himself through his vambrace, not that it helps. They're going to have to make camp or move, but with the wounded and the dying they can't go far. They can't stay here, amongst the tainted dead, even if they burn them. They'll have to--

Fenris frowns at him. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Carver says, but ... Maker, it isn't, is it? It's something. It throbs and it's spreading, and he's been trying not to think about it. 

"Show me," Fenris snarls, hands flickering over his buckles with the speed of familiarity, and he gets Carver's gauntlet off and his vambrace too, gambeson unlaced, and then he stops.

It's just a flesh wound. It misses the tendons, not deep enough to hit bone, and it crosses over another scar, older, jagged but faded now. It bleeds sluggishly but the edges of the new wound are dark, the flesh almost purple.

Fenris hisses, hovering a hand over it. "You! Why would you?" He jerks away, clutching Carver by the wrist. "Mage! Mage Warden! You must--"

Carver can't tell him it's fine. He knows better. But knowing takes the last of his strength. "Don't, Fenris. Let it be."

But Fenris is frantic and won't listen. " _Mage Warden_!"

The look on Levyn's face is confirmation enough, but then Levyn does something, unfamiliar magic that tastes of rot and iron, and Carver's vision blurs, goes to black. He's dragged down, so heavy he feels like he'll crush up to nothing, and in the midst of it he hears someone say, 

_No_.

_No what?_

"Oh, I don't know. What do you think?"

Carver blinks. 

He's standing at the edge of a field. There's wheat below, waving in the wind, peas and beans and marrows in neat rows beside him. He can smell fresh wet earth and tuberose. He knows this place.

It's all wrong, though. It's daylight, or it pretends to be, and tuberose only blooms at night. The peas and beans are _too_ neat, perfect copies of each other like they've been stamped out in wax. The patterns the wind trails in the wheat are disturbing, monstrous faces darkening the golden heads.

And there are ... things. On the edges, lurking like shadows. Waiting to swoop in and eat him.

So. It's the Fade.

Which means there's a fucking _demon_ stalking him, and he turns, already scowling, already reaching for his sword.

He stops, though, at the sight of the cottage beyond the fence. The garden is overrun with pumpkins and herbs, thyme and lemon verbena and mint, passion fruit and tuberose and willowherb. There's a well and a bridge and a door painted to match the sky. Because his mother loved blue, because Bethany loved blue, because it was the colour of his father's eyes.

His feet take him up. It smells the same. The grass crushed beneath his boots comes up sweet and damp and earthy. It's rained today. There's a whiff of woodsmoke. Someone's been baking.

There's barking inside, and it makes him gasp, because he'll never forget the sound of it, nor the thunder of heavy paws on the floorboards. Someone laughs, deep and bassy, and someone else is scolding the dog though everyone knows she doesn't really mean it.

And behind it all. Singing, sweet and high.

The sound of it closes his throat. He can't breathe. She's _singing_ , like she did before Father died, like she always loved to, and Carver would never let anyone tease her for it. How many scraps started that way? All those black eyes and lectures and switchings, and he'd take all of them again just to hear to her sing.

He has a hand on the door, flat on the paint. They're only inches away. It would be so easy.

"If you open that door, there's no coming back."

Garrett.

No, the _demon_.

Except when he turns to look it's just Garrett, leaned up against the wall shoulder-to-hip, his ankles crossed casually in the way that always gets Carver's back up for no good reason. And it's unmistakably Garrett. He's perfect, head to toe, his stupid beard and his shaggy hair, eyes brown and dark and brimming with amusement. There's the scar on his temple that he healed himself (which is why there's a scar) lines around his eyes and, fuck, is that grey in his hair? Just a scattering of it, but yeah. Garrett.

Carver narrows his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. Or out for you, anyway."

One of the lurking things catches Carver's eye and Garrett turns to look. 

"Don't worry about them. I won't let them anywhere near you. Nice place you've got here," he adds, glancing across the garden. "If all of Ferelden was really like this then maybe I'd miss it too."

"You don't, then?"

"I couldn't have stayed." Garrett winces and shakes his head. "Everywhere we went it was too small. Claustrophobic. But look at _you!_ For all you always wanted to prove yourself, you've picked a cosy little plot to settle down in."

"I wanted it to come home to," Carver says, and it's true. This is what he wants. He got the rest, the adventure, and all its accompanying horrors. If he'd known how it would end up he'd have stayed at home. But then the Blight would have rolled over Lothering anyway. They might have got out sooner, though, found somewhere better to make a life again. Bethany might still be alive. And Mother, if they never went to Kirkwall. They were only waiting for him and --

Maker, is it all his _fault_?

"No," Garrett says, one hand jerking up as if he's going to reach out. He doesn't, though, simply resettles it on his hip. "It was never your fault. None of this is your fault, Carver. You can keep on blaming me for it, forever, if you want."

Carver leans his weight against the door, fingers splayed on the surface. The wood feels spongy, just a little, the paint a little tacky. This place is never quite right, always subtly wrong somehow. Garrett, though. Garrett's real.

Why is he here?

"Are _they_ real?" he asks, nodding at the door. He can hear Bethany singing and the sound of it pierces him like a needle, knitting up something inside that's been broken for so long.

"They're dead, Carver."

Carver closes his eyes. "I know that."

"Then you know why you're here."

"I don't know why _you're_ here." Carver turns to glare at him. "Cullen said you died. Shouldn't you be on the other side of this door, then? Or are we not good enough for you?"

He regrets it, watching the hurt bloom in his brother's face. "Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you're not sad about it. Me being dead, that is."

Oh, he's an ass. Carver's an ass and Garrett's an ass, they're asses together, Bethy was right. "I am sad about it. I mean, I'm sorry. I wish you weren't."

"That's all right." Garrett eyes him thoughtfully. "You know, you don't have to go in. You could stay."

"Or you could come in with me," Carver says, but Garrett makes a face.

"I can't, actually."

"But, if you're dead--"

Garrett sighs, and makes a fiddly gesture with one hand. "I'm not ... completely dead. Just mostly. It's complicated."

How complicated can it be? "What do you mean? You can't be _partly_ dead. Either you've got a pulse or you don't."

"That's a very good point. I think there's a pulse, somewhere, only it's not mine anymore. Justice," Garrett says, and it doesn't actually explain anything. "He's doing his best, but I think the only person he's completely convinced is himself."

"What in the void does that mean?"

"Nothing important. Listen," Garrett wets his lip, eyes fixed on Carver like he's the only thing left in the universe. "You don't have to go in there. They'll still be there, no matter how long it takes. They're happy. They're dead," he says simply, just a truth. " _They_ don't miss you because they're dead. Regret is for the living."

Carver's got so many regrets. The idea that he could forget them all and be with _them_ is tempting. "What about you?"

"Well. _I'll_ miss you. But I'm used to that. You ran away from me years ago, after all."

It's true. Carver can't even deny it. He hates how it makes him feel, though, the idea that his brother might have missed him all this time. That he'd gone under the ground without Carver not because he'd wanted to, but because he'd had to. That Garrett regretted things too, and that maybe, knowing all this, things could have gone differently.

"And then there's Fenris."

It's a low blow. Carver twists, everything he's feeling bubbling up in him like, like lava, like the sea, like _magic_ , and it isn't _fair_.

"He's tearing his heart in two right now. He knows there's nothing he can do, but he's praying all the same. If you can call it praying," Garrett adds drily, "when it's mostly threatening the Maker. There's a tiny part of him that believes he brought this on you himself, and that's the bit that's breaking his heart."

"How?" Carver feels choked. This isn't fair. "He didn't do anything wrong."

"He made a bargain with the Maker. He thinks this is the Maker punishing him for breaking it." Garrett shrugs. "He's wrong about that, but he'll never know. It'll just eat away at him forever."

Carver _can't_. " _Stop!_ " He can't breathe, everything lead inside him. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because it doesn't have to end like _this_." 

Garrett does reach out then, gripping his wrist and squeezing hard. His eyes are dark and desperate and Carver remembers: the time Garrett lost him in the woods; the time Carver was bitten by the snake; the time he fell out of that walnut tree and Garrett had thought his back was broken. This look. His brother's face. And Garrett doesn't let go, fingers dry and tight on his skin.

"Let me help you, for once. I fucked it up every other time, but this time ... _please_ , Carver."

He looks down. Carver follows. There's the wound in his arm, dripping black stuff like blood. It doesn't hurt anymore, it's just there. The skin of his forearm is mottled with rotten blotches like patches of mould. He can see it spreading, purple along the veins, streaking up to his shoulder. 

It'll reach his heart soon. He's got a pretty good idea of what will happen then.

"What are you going to do?" 

"Just take the taint out of you." 

As easy as that. "How do you know how?"

" _Please_." Garrett sounds almost normal then, back to mocking him. "As if _that's_ the strangest thing about this."

He's right. "What will happen if you do?"

"You'll wake up. And I'll find a use for it." It's far too nonchalant. There's something he's not telling.

"What's going to happen to you?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. I've got options."

Carver breathes in but it's the Fade, it's not enough, it's not _real_. The only real things here are Garrett and the taint in his arm. "Will I see you again?"

"Yes." He looks sad, mouth twisting painfully. "But you won't remember. You're not going to remember any of this."

Oh. That's ... that's _so unfair_. 

But Garrett just smiles and says, "Don't. I'll remember for both of us, as long as I can."

"Okay. _Okay_." Carver swallows, and tries not to be afraid. "Take it."

"All right, little brother." He leans in, rests his brow against Carver's. "Sorry. This is going to hurt."

He twists his grip on Carver's arm, and then he _yanks_. It feels like he's pulled all the bones out of Carver's arm, like the flesh is just sliding free, loose, an agony. Carver can't scream because he has nothing to scream with, and then the Fade explodes into stars.

They're cold on his skin, colder than the Fade could ever be. Then he realises they're fixed in place, not falling all around him. They're just stars. That's the smell of burning flesh, far out on the plain. That's the ground beneath him, hard and merciless.

Someone is clutching his hand, and he can sense the lyrium throbbing in their fingers. That's _Fenris_.

He aches all over, but he's unmistakably alive. And his cheeks are wet, but he doesn't remember why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warden Levyn was much inspired by [wargoddess'](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess) Warden Levyn. He's just ... everything I ever wanted for my Circle bestie.


	53. Chapter 53

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of death talk, fyi.

Carver does not look like a man sleeping. Rather he looks dead already, and Fenris can hardly bear it. Carver is a warrior; Carver should fight. Carver should burn and rage. He should not go quietly into the dark, alone.

So Fenris will not let him go alone.

They bring Fenris a blanket. Blankets are precious now, so Fenris tucks it around Carver's body. He has taken Carver's armour from him, tried to make him comfortable on the ground. It makes no difference when he is like this, comatose and so still.

They bring another blanket, and he would tuck that also around Carver's body except that Orana brings him _Tully_ , and insists that Fenris mind him.

It is not a chore, he understands that much. It is a comfort, so Fenris removes his breastplate and takes the sleepy little boy into his lap, hugging the blanket around them to keep Tully warm. Tully tucks himself up, murmuring against Fenris' chest, and Fenris holds him close. This is what he traded Carver for. This is what he bought by offering Carver to the Maker.

It is his fault. He has brought destruction upon them both for the love of a child that is not his.

Fenris should never have approached him.

Fenris sits, watching, clutching Carver's hand as the stars glisten overhead, and he is still. But inside he _rages_.

 _That You would do this! To him, who did You no wrong, who only ever served You. He was Your hand, Your will made manifest. No matter that You felt I needed punishment, how could You punish_ him _in this way? How dare You._

It infuriates him to think of all the years in which Carver has served his Maker, only to be rewarded with this. And for what?

To punish Fenris? To hold Tully to ransom?

Hateful. Cruel. Despot. The Maker is no better than the Archon, grown fat on the worship of ambitious men and women, and fools.

 _If it were in my power I would take such revenge on You that Thedas would tremble for an age,_ he thinks bitterly. _I would rather spit in Your eye than be graced by Your Light._

And Fenris can do nothing, is nothing, little better than a slave chained to a world that cares nothing for him.

But, watching Carver's still features, knowing the evil that works in his flesh to unmake him, his anger burns out, impotent before the grief of what he must witness come to pass.

He cannot look away. He _must_ witness it. There is no-one else to do so.

Except. The knight corporal is so young, as young as Carver when Fenris first looked upon him and found him more pleasing than annoying. The young knight wears his armour easily, as if it is nothing to him, as much his skin as Fenris’ own. He is as handsome as his companion is plain, golden-haired where the other is dark, and there is grief writ on him in stark furrows. 

Grief masked by a furious determination. "Any change?" he demands, not looking up from where Carver lies, so pale.

"The taint continues to spread," Fenris says, because it is true and he will not deny it, even to himself.

The boy curses, clutching his hands into fists. "No, you bastard," he whispers. "You don't get to do this to me again." But it is not to Fenris that he speaks. 

His friend touches his arm, murmuring something in his ear, and then glances down at the place where Fenris' fingers are twined in Carver's chill ones.

"You are well acquainted with our Knight Lieutenant, serrah?" he asks, soft and Orlesian.

There are no words for it. "An old friend."

"And the prince?"

Sebastian is not yet a prince. He will be, Fenris thinks. He finds he does not have it in him to care. If Carver dies here then Starkhaven is poisoned for him, and Sebastian with it. He will never be able to think of them as anything but the city that Carver died for, the prince Carver died for. 

And Fenris. Carver dies for Fenris, now.

But he says, "Another old friend."

The youth does not press him further, simply guides his companion away with soft words and touches, and Fenris envies them because they are _alive_. They have each other and Fenris has nothing.

No, it isn't so. He has Tully, a warm weight in his lap.

When she comes to him he does not at first understand what he's seeing. But then he takes her in -- her coppery hair and the line of her jaw. She is a stranger in that blue and silver armour, but the shape of her body as she props her hands on her hips and shakes her head is unforgettable.

"Aveline," he says.

"Hello, Fenris. Good to see you." But her lip curls as she looks down at Carver. "The circumstances could be better, however."

The wardens have changed her. There had used to be a softness in her face that is now gone, replaced by a hard, weary intensity. He has always respected her strength and her focus. Now it is heavy, relentless, all of her a stone against which the creatures of the dark may break themselves while she remains untouched by their evil.

She, too, eyes the place where Carver and Fenris' hands enmesh, and she sighs. "I take it you have a stake in Carver surviving this."

"You speak as if such a thing were possible," he says bitterly, but something in her face gives him pause. "Is it?"

"Nothing you'll like," she says, quiet and firm.

But something. "Blood magic?"

"Something like that." 

Fenris cannot choose that. Not with a clear conscience. And yet-- "Tell me," he says, because he must know, if there is a chance.

"We can make him a Grey Warden." She grimaces. "It's not a cure, you understand. Just a slower death."

It seems hypocritical. "And yet here you are, alive."

"I'm still dying." It is blunt and completely Aveline. The familiarity is comforting when her words are not.

But. "Are we not all dying? One way or another."

"This death is particularly brutal," she says crisply. But then she shrugs. "Might give him a few years, though. Ten, maybe. Twenty, if he's lucky. Thirty, sometimes, but not often. And the end isn't any better than this one. He'll go down in the dark and the 'spawn will chew on his bones. Is that what you want for him?"

It isn't. Fenris wants Carver to die in his bed at the end of a long life, surrounded by those who love him, but ... that isn't a death either of them were ever going to have. Any life, even a day of it, would be better than _this_.

At least the Warden way, Carver will die _fighting_.

"What needs to be done?"

She hesitates, and when she speaks it is gentler, a touch of the Aveline he remembers. "The Joining could kill him, Fenris. And if it doesn't, you won't ever see him again. He'll be a Warden, then. We'll take him with us and he'll never leave."

But Fenris thinks of Anders, who _did_ leave, and Carver's warden knight, the one they are saying is brother to a dead king.

And he thinks of Carver, and Carver's devotion to his duty. Would he consider the duty he owed the Wardens greater than his vows to the Chantry?

Fenris cannot know the answer to that, but he does know one thing.

"Tell me what needs to be done. I will do whatever you ask of me."

She eyes him, her face impassive, but she nods. "I'll talk to Stroud." And she walks away.

Better, Fenris thinks, the risk of death than its certainty. Better ten years than none. And better Fenris never see Carver again than to know him only ashes underground.

Better to die fighting.

It's cold but Fenris stays, wiping his cheeks on the blanket and wishing that he could have had more of this. Just a few days. Just an hour. Just a kiss, or a look. To know Carver was well, and had forgiven him. Just Carver, as little or as much as he could be allowed.

The stars are bright overhead, hanging in the infinite blackness of the sky, and Fenris holds on to Tully, and to Carver's hand, and insists to himself that this is the only choice he could make. There is no other.

Then Carver sucks in a sharp gasp, and Fenris realises that his eyes are open.

" _Carver!_ " He chafes Carver's hand in his, holding it to his mouth to breathe warmth into it, and Carver _groans_. Still alive. For how long Fenris doesn't know, but alive _now_ and awake. Carver stirs, trying to sit up, but Fenris leans on him. "No, lie still."

"Water?"

Fenris has to release Carver's hand to find his waterskin, and his fingers are cramped from it, but he fumbles the stopper loose and tips a thin trickle into Carver's mouth.

Carver swallows and splutters. "More," he begs when Fenris takes it away, so Fenris gives him a little more.

Then he tries again to sit up and Fenris cannot help his growl. "No! Lie still." He tries to moderate himself, to remember that Carver is dying and he must--

"Give me that," Carver snaps, grabbing at the waterskin. For a man near death he's stubborn, so Fenris lets him have it, and watches as Carver pushes himself up on one elbow, guzzling water like he's

Ah. Dying for it.

"Do you have enough?" Fenris is acutely aware of Tully sleeping in his lap, but if Carver needs he will dislodge the child to go fetch more.

"Yeah." Carver wipes his mouth, blinking. He seems to focus with an effort. "Hey."

Fenris stares at him, and he doesn't know what to say.

"Did I black out?" Carver tries to sit up again and collapses, weak as a kitten. Fenris tries and fails to catch him. "Fffuck. I feel like I've been hit by a dreadnought."

"You need to rest," Fenris insists. He’s so _lucid_. Fenris does not know what to do.

Carver seems determined. "I need to see to my knights."

"Your knights will take care of themselves. _Please_." Fenris can't help it, his voice breaks on the word and Carver stares at him so.

"Hey," he says, and he reaches for Fenris' hand, squeezing it weakly. " _Hey_. Are you okay?"

"I am _fine_ ," Fenris tells him, though it is only true for a certain definition of the word. "But you must lie still. You have been gravely wounded."

Carver frowns. "I mean, I hurt everywhere, but ..."

"Your arm," Fenris tells him, and leans over to touch the arm that is blackened with the taint.

Except, when Carver turns it over Fenris sees the wound is ... not healed but _healthy_. The purple edges have shifted into red, dark veins faded to flesh, the mottling gone, and for the first time since Carver went down Fenris feels _hope_.

"Levyn!" he calls. It is late and perhaps the Mage Warden is sleeping now, but Fenris cannot let this be ignored. He turns, spying one of Carver's knights nearby, a bulwark in her plate. "You! Find the Wardens and tell them--"

But tell them what? That Carver is not tainted? Is he not? Perhaps this is simply the next progression of the taint, and yet.

The knight lumbers over. "Ser?" she says, staring down at Carver with eyes dark and wide and pitying. "Are you… I mean to say..." But she falters and cannot finish.

Carver makes a face. "Wrecked, Ser Maglene, but all right. Shouldn't I be?"

She casts her eye on Fenris, and she looks as stunned as he feels, but her expression shutters into wariness. "I'll find the Healer, ser," she says, before jogging off into the night.

Carver leans on one arm, grimacing. "Maker, I'm starving. Where's my belt-pouch?"

"Here, here." Fenris finds it, opens it up, and offers Carver the contents. Carver unwraps a stick of dried meat, glares at it, and sighs.

"Better than nothing," he mutters, and chews it up, washing it down with a draught of lyrium and with such relish that it makes Fenris want to smack the phial from his hand.

Carver catches his look and glances away in shame, or something like it.

"Sorry," he mumbles, chewing and swallowing. "I'm low, you know. I ... I went without and ... I'm sorry."

He does not need to be sorry for this. Fenris does not know what his appearance of wellness means, but he is glad of it, all the same.

If Carver is well. If Carver is hale. If Carver _lives_ then Fenris ... then Fenris will be satisfied.

He waits for the healer, snugging Tully to his chest, one hand seeking Carver's again, just holding on. If Carver is well then _all_ is well.

It is all he has wanted. He cannot ask for more.

* * *

Fenris is here, and it's going to be okay. Carver's sure of it, though Fenris makes such _faces_. He keeps looking at Carver as though he's dying and Carver can't stand it. "I'm _fine_ , Fenris, stop fussing."

"I will _not_ ," Fenris says hotly, and then open his mouth as though he means to say more but the bundle in Fenris’ lap shifts, a sleepy face peeking out of it, and Carver realises it’s not just cloth. It’s a child, with golden hair and wide amber eyes and ears like leaves, all of him wrapped up beneath Fenris' blanket.

The child looks at him, and Carver cannot speak. Because. Of course. He'd forgotten. _Maker._

It sits up, one arm going around Fenris’ neck and the other coming up to knuckle at its face, and then it mumbles something in a language Carver has never understood but the sound of which is achingly familiar.

Fenris hums and says, "This is Ser Carver. You must say ‘hello’ to him."

The child (he thinks it’s a boy) squints at Carver, and the look on his face is wary. "Salve."

Fenris _smiles_. "No. In common."

The child screws up his tiny face into a pout. " _He_ llo."

Carver’s mouth is dry, but he licks his lips and he says, "Hello," right back, because what else is he going to do? He could let go of Fenris’ hand, he thinks, so he tries but Fenris’ fingers are strong and firm and will not be released.

"Tell to him your name," Fenris prompts, and the child humphs, twisting about until he’s sitting up straight in Fenris’ lap.

"I'm Tully."

Carver doesn’t know how to respond, so he clears his throat and tries anyway. "I’m Carver."

The child doesn't seem to care, just leans his head up on Fenris’ shoulder. "Hungry. We eat?"

Fenris snorts, disentangling the blanket from the boy. "As you are always. Go and bother your mother."

"Mama’s sleeping."

"Then find something yourself."

The child considers this, and then looks sly. "Okay!" He clambers out of Fenris' lap to run off past the nearest campfire and toward another, and Carver loses sight of him.

"Safe on his own, is he?"

Fenris nods. "He has a knife."

That’s … "Fenris, he’s too young for a knife."

"If he were human, perhaps," Fenris says, mouth tilting at the corners. "But."

Fenris still has his hand fast on Carver’s, and it’s distracting. "He looks like Orana."

"He does."

Carver doesn’t know what to do with Fenris’ hand. "He doesn’t look like you." Is that rude? It’s true, and Carver wanted to say it.

Fenris shakes his head. "No." Then he gives Carver an apologetic look. "I am not the father."

It’s … okay, that’s not what … "What?"

"Orana and I have never been … in that way. Tully is not mine." Fenris takes a breath, shoulders hunching up. "He calls me ‘uncle’. It is more than I am to him, but in Tevene it is appropriate." He closes his eyes. "There has been no-one, since you. I have been with no-one."

Carver feels broken open by it, though... Oh, he doesn't know. "What does that mean?"

"I have never ceased to care for you," Fenris says, not meeting Carver's eye. "I have been such a fool."

"You said that already." Carver props himself on one elbow, kneading Fenris' palm with his fingers. "Getting boring with that, Fenris."

Fenris tsks, baring his teeth. "As though it has not been boring, watching you lie there like a dead man," and he breaks off sharply, his expression so hurt that Carver can't be even a little mad at him.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm _okay_. We'll be fine," he says, though he can't be sure. 

Fenris nods, mouth turned down in uncertainty. Still, his hand on Carver's is firm, and he refuses to let go, even when the Wardens come over to poke and prod and shoot Carver dire, betrayed looks.

Really, they make such a fuss.

There's a lot of arguing. Carver's too exhausted to pay attention to most of it but he sees Levyn throw up his hands, glittering with magic, to shout down the warden who seems to be in charge with, "Well, I'm _not_ sure, all right? Maybe I'm a terrible healer and you should stop asking me to do it because I'm a _blood mage!_ " and then there's a lot of yelling, but it isn't about Carver now.

(Carver's knights don't arrest Levyn, because he's a Grey Warden and Stroud tells them very matter-of-factly that if they try he will dismember every last one of them. Carver makes Uldred sort it out, so no-one gets dismembered or Smited or set on fire.)

And there's Aveline. It's like the past coming up to smack him in the face. She went with Garrett when Carver didn't, and she went down under the taint, and _here she is_ , alive and bright and wry.

"Well," she says. "So you're _not_ tainted, then. Thanks for pissing off my husband for no good reason."

He breathes out, so glad to hear it, but also-- "You got _married?_ "

She grins. "Stroud. He's a good man and a good commander. We were looking forward to having you. But instead you just had to be a miracle." She shakes her head, with something that could be mistaken for fondness. " _Hawkes_. You're all _impossible_."

Which is how he finds out how close he'd come to being a Grey Warden.

He's a bit annoyed about that, actually, as the sun comes up and they shuffle him into the back of a cart. (He protests. No-one listens. Not even Fenris -- he's the worst of them, actually.) He could have been a _Grey Warden_ , and there's a childhood fantasy dashed to bits.

Fenris frowns when he complains about it. "You could have _died_. Be glad you did not need to face such a risk."

Carver can't help the feeling that it might have been worth it.

But apparently he's not allowed to be mad about that, apparently he's not allowed to do _anything_ , just relegated to a sickbed he can't actually get up out of, so maybe it's warranted. And when Lachlan comes up to hug him hard and angry it's ... okay, it's pretty good.

Lachlan's eyes are red-rimmed but he glares so hard Carver can't help wondering if he just burned them in that way.

"Don't you fucking die on me, ser," he mutters, eyes cutting away to glare at the turf ferociously enough that by rights it ought to burst into flame.

"Not planning on it, Knight Corporal."

Lachlan blows out a breath, lifting his chin. "I'm taking you home," he says, no sers or maybes about it, and Carver can't argue with him when he looks like this.

It wrenches when it's Alistair's turn.

He looks caught between relief and worry and Carver has no idea why until Alistair opens his mouth and says, "I'm going with them."

It takes a moment. "With the Grey Wardens?"

"Yes." He breathes out a heavy sigh, squaring his shoulders. "I'm still a Grey Warden. I was never really a templar, after the Joining."

He's right, but it's painful for Carver to admit it to himself. Alistair deserves this. Carver's glad of it, if he's honest, because Alistair was never _great_ at being a templar recruit. He's an incredible Grey Warden, though. It's what he's supposed to be.

Carver nods, and smacks Alistair on the shoulder. "All right. I can't stop you. Go save the world, one darkspawn at a time." _Thank-you,_ he means, and wishes he could say it aloud. _For everything._

Alistair looks grateful for all of a moment, but then he grins. "I'll do my best. Hawke."

He says. Because Carver isn't his Knight Lieutenant anymore. So Carver grins back at him. " _Alistair._ " And then, because he has to, he says, "You weren't the _worst_ recruit I ever had. I mean, I've had worse."

Alistair sketches him a sloppy salute. "I like to please." Then he smirks. "Try not to die without me."

"Do my best," Carver tells him, and Alistair turns to stride off to where the Wardens are waiting for him before they leave. They've Ser Caffrey and one of Fenris' scouts with them, a man and a woman who took their Joining and survived it, and now they're Wardens too.

The rest of the tainted are dead now or still stubbornly dying, so good luck to those two, at least. Maker bless, and all that. At least one of his knights was saved. He can't bear to think about the rest. If he thinks about it too much right now he's going to break down. He shouldn't have lost any of them. But. Six knights dead and two on the way, and one gone to the Wardens.

Maker help him.

The trip to Starkhaven is slow and dull and miserable. Carver hates being confined to the cart, but he can barely piss on his own so he supposes he shouldn't try to walk it off. He dozes a lot, and Fenris keeps bringing him things -- a health potion, a stamina potion, a bit of stale bread, more water. Carver takes all of it because he needs it, but he resents being confined in this way when he can _see_ his knights marching on behind. Lachlan has got what's left of his squad ringed around the cart like an honour guard, and at one of the stops Carver gripes at him about it.

"Shouldn't you be protecting Sebastian? Or maybe the refugees?"

Lachlan scowls at him. "Aren't you off duty, ser? Uldred said you were incapacitated and I could do what I liked."

Well, so long as Uldred has it under control.

Sister Leliana climbs up next to him for a while, and chats to him about anything and everything. She tells him long and impossible stories about his cousin, Solona Amell, a Kinloch Circle Mage and the Hero of Ferelden. When she does Carver hears Bethany in every word. He wonders what it would have been like for his sister in the Circle, what it would have been like for her to become a Warden, what she might have done.

"She was magnificent," Leliana concludes, watching him with wide, light eyes. "I cannot imagine your brother, however, as anything less."

Carver takes a deep breath, willing away the familiar resentment that comes of people talking up his brother. Garrett's dead now. He should be kind to the memory of him.

"Garrett," he says carefully, "was a lot of things. Most of them crazy."

She smiles. "That sounds familiar."

"Sometimes," Carver says, feeling wretched about it, "I really wished he'd be a bit less magnificent. Or maybe that everyone else could see he was just a human, not this ... legendary sodding Champion."

Because. Sometimes Garrett had been a good brother. The best brother Carver's ever had. And those times had nothing to do with slaying the Arishok or, or whatever else he did as Champion. Just little things. The night he'd walked Carver back to the Gallows, after ... after Carver had got his heart broken. The sword he'd given him, that Carver has sheathed now beside him in the cart with his armour. Little things like a round of drinks, a joke at someone else's expense, a tiny sliver of praise in amongst all his endless _laughter_.

"I think Solona felt the same, about herself." Leliana leans up against the side of the cart, her cowl casting shadows over her face. "She never wanted to be a hero. She told me once that all she wanted was to be free to make her own life, outside of the Circle. With people who loved her."

Which is what Bethany had, for a little while.

Maybe Bethany had been better off. He'll never _know_.

"Is she... is she still alive? The way you talk about her," Carver says, because that's how it goes. Someone dies and all your verbs change into hads and dids and used-tos.

"I believe she is, but I have not heard from her in so long that I wonder." Leliana frowns, and then sits up. "I must stretch my legs. Is there anything you want that I can send for?"

There's nothing except Garrett, alive, or Bethany, alive, or his mother. Or his father.

So he tells her no and he lies down, exhausted, and sleeps the rest of the way despite the jogging of the cart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, I was riffing on Don John in _Much Ado About Nothing_ with Fenris' threats to the Maker -- "I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any." A Fenrisesque thought, if ever I saw one.
> 
> ETA: Oh! And Fenris is clearly a Dylan Thomas fan, fyi.


	54. Chapter 54

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got a bit ... lengthy.

Before they reach the gates of Starkhaven, they find Templars waiting for them on the road.

Carver struggles up in the cart to stare at them and _oh_ , it's a good sight, Tristram at the head of a column of Knights with Chantry sisters scattered amongst them, Starkhaven rising up resplendent behind. Thank the fucking Maker.

He tries to get down from the cart but Maglene's beside him, one hand on his shoulder. "Ser, please," she says, and he scowls at her.

"I need to talk to the Knight Captain!"

She frowns, but then she hops down to fetch Tristram up, and Tristram's face when he sees Carver is like the sun breaking out from behind clouds. "Butcher!" He leans over the cart-tail to  
grab Carver by the shoulders and shake him. "So you're alive, little brother. What are you doing in this bally cart?"

"Got tagged," he says, and then, "Ser, I lost some of them. Our Knights," and he recites their names because he must.

Tristram nods, mouth turned down. "All right. Ach, that's a bad business." He shakes his head, upset, and Carver can do nothing to console him. But he lifts his chin, meeting Carver's eye. "What else is buggering you?"

Carver takes a breath. "There's mages among the refugees. I gave them my word--"

"Of course you bloody did." Tristram rolls his head back to importune the heavens. "Maker save me from my own bloody officers' best intentions. What did you tell them?"

Not a lot, really. But he did promise to protect them, and when Tristram hears as much he scowls over it.

"Well. That's that, and I won't make you break your word. But y'cannae take them to the barracks, not yet. No, you'd best come up to the palace with us."

Carver doesn't know if he can walk that far on his own, but he doesn't have to. Maglene shoves herself up under his arm, grimacing as though he weighs a tonne, and swears she'll get him wherever he needs to go.

"And the mages?"

Tristram nods, serious as a shipwreck. "They can tarry a while longer. This lot's not coming into the city today. Never you fret, boy-oh," he adds, catching the look on Carver's face. "I'll see that they're minded for you. Now. Where's your uniform?"

Carver thinks Tristram means him to put it on right up until Tristram drags Sebastian up to the cart and insists he drape himself in Carver's robes.

"You mean to smuggle me in?" Sebastian looks displeased, but Tristram just scowls at him until he does it, and then buckles him into Carver's armour. He looks ... ridiculous. He doesn't know how to wear it properly, and it drags on him, ill-fitting and wrong. Any Templar could see it was wrong, would know better than to believe him a Lieutenant of the Order, but Tristram shrugs and declares it good enough for what's necessary.

Fenris looks dire about it, but he swallows his arguments, taking up a silent guard on Sebastian's right-hand side, and glowering brutally.

Carver thinks about the little boy Fenris is 'uncle' to, and Orana, and the mages left behind. No wonder Fenris looks dire. But he comes along all the same, glaring his glares and saying nothing at all.

Tristram's party go ahead on foot. Sebastian huffs and puffs beneath the weight of plate, and Carver huffs and puffs beside him. Tristram chivvies them along amongst his Templars, up to the city gates, through them and along the winding boulevards of Starkhaven. Carver's never really appreciated how handsome she is, clean and neat and ridiculously overdressed. There's trees on street-corners, flowers in boxes lining the streets, even in the poorer districts, the houses growing taller and nicer as they go up all the way to the top, where the palace sits like a glittering cake.

And it makes his heart clench because ...

It's pretentious. Carver's always thought so. But it's so Starkhaven, and Carver can't deny the pang in his chest to see her again.

It's not home. But maybe it could be.

They get all the way to the palace gates before they're stopped, by a double-squad of guards in Starkhaven crimson-and-black and the shiniest of shiny armour.

And their Guard Lieutenant. Carver recognises her from a day so long ago that it feels like a lifetime, the day that Sebastian signed away his right of return, and Carver witnessed it, and Maker, this is all going to happen, isn't it? He's caught right up in it and there's no way to get out this time without doing something irreversible.

She doesn't want to let them in, and Tristram bickers with her, his temper slowly rising with his voice, right up until a woman in the robes of the Chantry steps up beside him and clears her throat.

"Lieutenant Yseine," she says, Starkhaven thick on her tongue. "These good knights are with me, and I wish an audience with Goran Vael."

She pushes back her hood. Carver is struck by her starkly shaven scalp, and by her naked face. It takes him a moment to realise who she reminds him of -- Isabela, or rather, a wooden idol of Andraste Sebastian showed him once, who herself reminded him of Isabela.

"Grand Cleric," Guard Lieutenant Yseine says, her eyes widening. And then she firms her mouth. "I do not know of an appointment that you have with the prince, today."

Grand Cleric Merida smiles thinly. "Nevertheless, I will see him. I have that right, do I not?"

Yseine seems torn. Her gaze fixes on Sebastian at Carver's side, though all she can possibly see of him are aquamarine eyes glistening in the shadows of Carver's helmet. Still, it is clear that she recognises him. She stares. And then, after an interminable pause, she nods, very deliberately looking away.

"As you wish, Grand Cleric. I will escort you."

And they're in. Fenris sticks to Sebastian's side, a silent shadow, and his eyes flicker about as if seeking enemies, but his expression is blank as a clean slate. Carver wonders what he's thinking. 

Maker, he doesn't know what to think himself. Why did Tristram bring him along? He's running out of breath, and what he wouldn't give for a stamina potion. But. As they approach the throne room he does his best to stand up straight all by himself, despite Maglene's glaring and baring of teeth. He won't limp in like an invalid, not when he has to face a prince while dressed only in shirt and trou, no robes nor coat, practically naked. He has enough pride left to refuse _that_.

"Grand Cleric Merida," someone announces, and they file in behind her.

Carver's been here before, but last time ... last time they had been trying to get away without being _thrown in a cell_ , and this time? He thinks they'll be lucky to get out without blood spilled.

There are people ranged about the room, most of them richly dressed, nobles he supposes, one way or another, and between them their servants. Some of those are richly dressed as well, some of them in Starkhaven colours, but he can tell, from the way they seem to sink into the background, that they are servants, and supposed to be beneath notice.

He notices them. Servants are people, and 'people' could have knives in their sleeves, after all.

The Grand Cleric stops several yards short of the throne. She's small, just a little slip of a thing, barely older than Carver, but she holds herself like a queen. "Cousin," she says, dropping the shallowest curtsey Carver's ever seen. He supposes a Grand Cleric ranks a Prince, or perhaps only in Starkhaven, or maybe because they are (as she says) cousins. "I would say 'well met' but I suspect today you will not think it so."

Goran Vael seems much, much older than Carver remembers. He's florid and soft, his fancy silks threaded in gold, and there's rings on his every finger, glittering and useless.

He looks like Carver thinks a king in a story might look, but not one of the good ones. No. He looks like the kind who wears gold and silks while his people starve, and knowing how thin it can get in the poor quarter, Carver can't help feeling that this is exactly what he's been doing.

His pale eyes narrow as he takes them in, the Grand Cleric and all their Templar steel. "What have you _done_ , Merida? Do not think the Chantry will protect you if you lead an uprising against me."

She spreads her hands, serene as a calm sea. But there is something in her that reminds Carver of storms, and great waves that can tear a harbour down into the deeps. "I lead nothing. I am simply a messenger."

She turns, and Carver leans on Maglene, watching Sebastian remove his helmet. It's a little awkward, to be honest, and he means to reach over and help with the clasps but then Sebastian has it, tucking this thing under one arm and running his fingers through his hair.

(Carver sees the gauntlets snag and Sebastian's accompanying wince, and he thinks, _Yeah, there's a trick to that._ )

"Cousin," Sebastian says. 

Goran's lip curls back into a snarl. " _You_. I spared you, on your word that you would not return. Is this what your word is worth?"

Sebastian does not flinch. "I was another man then. In another life. That man died on the road from Kirkwall. I have renounced my vows," he says, his voice rising. "I am no longer Sebastian, Brother of the Chantry, but only Sebastian Vael, son of Starkhaven."

Only. He sounds as if he's losing everything by saying it, and Carver thinks about his commission, his own vows to the Maker, and what it would mean to leave them in the dust.

But Goran Vael has pushed himself up out of his chair, frothing in fury. "You cannot simply claim yourself a new man. I have your _word_ , given by your hand of your own free will. Marilyn!"

He turns to a vaguely familiar hawk-faced woman, standing behind a lectern in severe Starkhaven-red robes. She rummages for a scroll, spreading it out upon her lectern, and frowns. "The document was signed by Brother Sebastian. If this man no longer exists, then no man is bound by his promises."

"That cannot be so!"

The woman regards her prince flatly, and then she shrugs. "There was a witness."

That means Carver. Carver knows it, so he clears his throat, even as Sebastian turns to look at him. "That was me."

"Carver Amell of Kirkwall," the woman says, as if it's significant, and Carver winces because it's true, no matter how he denies it. It's always going to be true.

But it's not the only thing that's true. "Carver Hawke, Lieutenant of the Order of Knights Templar," he says, and the woman nods, making a note in her ledger.

"Carver Hawke. Witness to this document."

"Yeah," he says, not quite sure what they expect of him.

"And you witnessed the signature of Brother Sebastian, on the day 9:35 Molioris 15th, in the sight of the Maker."

Carver isn't sure of the date, but he is sure of what he signed, so. He says, "Yes," and then, because it feels right, he says, "in the sight of the Maker."

He isn't immediately struck down by lightning, so it must have been the right thing to do. Surely. _Surely_.

"And you attest that it was written 'Brother Sebastian' and not 'Sebastian Vael' nor 'Sebastian of Starkhaven'?"

Carver clears his throat, acutely aware of the eyes on him, and what's at stake. "To my recollection, serrah, yes. Brother Sebastian, that's all."

"Let the record show that the witness' testimony matches the document in question," she says, already making a note of it.

The prince hisses. His face is livid, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

"How _dare_ you?" he snarls, and his eyes are fixed on Sebastian. "How dare you attempt to _trick_ me? Coming here in disguise and playing games with words to excuse your perfidy."

"How dare you, cousin," Sebastian says, handing off Carver's helmet and stepping forward. He stands tall and straight, and there is a fire in his face that Carver likes. He looks like a man come to make good on something, to tear down a thing that needs tearing down, and he does not look as though he is afraid to die today.

Carver hopes none of them will, as he watches Fenris dog Sebastian's steps, one pace back and to the side of him, his hands twitching as if ready to draw at a moment's notice.

"How dare I?" Goran snaps, chin gone high.

"How dare you take my father's throne, when it was you who put him in his grave?"

This sends a ripple through the nobles ringed about the room. Carver tears his gaze from Sebastian to watch _them_ , ready to give the word to shield Sebastian, should it be necessary. They look dismayed, suspicious, confused, but eager to see how the scene before them will play out.

"How _dare_ you?" Goran says again, but this time his cheeks are ashen, the blood drained from him, and he looks so very guilty. "Your accusations are baseless and beneath you--"

"They have a basis." Sebastian walks right up to the foot of the throne, and not one of the guards moves a muscle to stop him. "Do you deny conspiring with Johane Harimann to engineer your passage to the throne? I have seen your signature on letters admitting as much. Please, tell me it is not true. Tell me that my cousin did not murder my father and mother and brothers for a crown and a silken bed."

Goran stares at him, and then he twists, casting his gaze over the nobles gathered uncertainly in his throne room. "Will none of you speak? You cannot wish this untried colt to rule you! Do none of you remember his excesses? How many of you have pulled him from your daughters' beds?"

Carver tenses. That's _harsh_ , and from the shape of Sebastian's face not entirely unwarranted. But Sebastian stands still, spine straight, and does not look away from the prince.

And the nobles do nothing. None of them meet Goran's eye, all of them watching Sebastian or the floor or nothing at all from behind close-shut lids.

Goran makes a harsh sound. "Genevieve! Do you allow this?"

One of the women standing near the throne sighs, lifting her chin and shifting her gold-stitched skirts restlessly. "You forget, Goran, that Sebastian is _my_ cousin also. And his mother was my aunt. If what he says is true then I would welcome him to the throne, now that he chooses to claim it."

It seems to take the wind from Goran's sails for all of a heartbeat, but then he flings up a hand. "Guards! Seize this traitor at once!"

There is a moment in which everyone in the room seems to hold their breath, and then _nothing happens_. Everything is deathly still, and Carver can hardly bear it.

The prince bares his teeth. "Quartus! Yseine! One of you, do as you are ordered or I will see you hanged for insubordination!"

Guard Lieutenant Yseine clears her throat. "Captain Quartus is indisposed. And I see no traitors here, serrah."

Goran goes deathly grey, collapsing back into his seat. "No."

And Sebastian steps up onto the dais, placing a hand on the back of the throne. "Guard Lieutenant, if you please. Take my cousin into custody. Treat him well," he adds, as Yseine gestures her guards forward. "He is still my cousin, no matter what he has done."

The guards lay ginger hands on Goran Vael and usher him out, and he does not fight them, seems done in by it all, cannot seem to understand what is happening. Sebastian waits until Goran has been taken away and then he turns, standing in front of his throne.

He eyes them all, and he looks so sorry that Carver wants nothing so much as to go to him, just clasp his arm and tell him everything's going to be okay.

But. Sebastian holds his chin up, and he says, "I, Sebastian Vael, claim the throne and the crown of Starkhaven, as is my right. If there is any who disputes it, speak now."

The nobles gathered there mutter amongst themselves, but no-one objects, and Carver thinks that's fair enough, when there's all this Templar steel in the room.

"Then it is done." Sebastian takes a deep breath, and sits down. "I will take fealty now, from any who chooses to offer it."

He looks like a prince. In Carver's bloody armour, but a prince all the same.

Carver can only hope he'll stick to it.

* * *

It's all very dull once Sebastian's done his thing. The Grand Cleric bends knee at Sebastian's feet, then Guard Lieutenant Yseine and a number of the nobles, and Carver wonders if he's supposed to go up, but he doesn't. He swore his duty to the Chantry and the Maker, and Tristram doesn't bloody go so he figures he doesn't have to.

Sebastian doesn't seem to care or even notice, and when Fenris hovers, uncertain, Sebastian touches him lightly on the arm and says, "There is no need, old friend."

Fenris nods, and takes up a place by Sebastian's side. Carver thinks, _It's really over now. It's done. Maker, I thought it would be worse than this._

He's shuffled out of the room then, off with his knights, and he fidgets in an anteroom on a spindly chair he's worried might break under him, for what feels like forever. 

Eventually, Tristram finds them. "Butcher!" he crows, clasping Carver by the shoulder and crouching down to look up at him. "How do you fare, son?"

"I'm all right, ser," Carver grumbles, though he's wrecked, honestly. Not quite over his first sickbed and then shoved into another, and now, yeah, wrecked. Fucking exhausted, but he can't let Tristram see it.

Tristram peers at him anyway, and nods. "Right as bloody rain, I see. Well, you're relieved of duty, all the same."

What? " _Why?_ "

"Because Callion wants you court-martialled for your sins, and I'm not quite ready to fight him over it. I need a day or two." 

Carver can't ... Court-martialled? "What did I do?"

Tristram grins at him. "Oh, you only ran off to help the Grand Cleric overthrow the Prince of Starkhaven. That's _all_. Nice work, Butcher." He smacks Carver's shoulder, his gauntlet rattling with it. "So, tarry here awhile, and I'll send for you when I want you. A'right?" 

Oh. Well, fine. Fucking _fine_. "As you say, ser."

Tristram smacks him again, standing up and ordering the rest of them out, except for Maglene who seems to be attached to Carver like an extra limb, for now.

He gives her a bewildered look, because he doesn't know what to do. Stay here? Sebastian's busy being a prince, and Fenris ... well, Fenris is with _Sebastian_ , so Carver's at a loose end.

"Hungry, ser?" Maglene asks, propping her fists on her hips and frowning at him.

He is, so he says as much, and she salutes him before disappearing to, he presumes, find them both something to eat.

But when she comes back she offers her hand. "Up you get, ser. I got you a room and a meal, and maybe a bath, if you're lucky."

"What about you?" he asks, and she snorts, wiggling her fingers.

"Never you mind about me, ser. I'll sort something out."

She sounds so sure. So he leans on Maglene because he needs her and she's willing enough, even though she mutters curses at him the whole time, and then he's lumped down a corridor and up some stairs, and Maglene drops him on a couch in a bedchamber far nicer than any he's ever been in before, a fire already lit in the grate.

"Are you sure this is for me?" he asks, and she smirks at him.

"Better to ask forgiveness than permission," she says, and it's such a junior knight thing to say, such a _recruit_ thing to say, that he chuckles despite himself.

"All right. Where's that meal you promised, Ser Maglene?"

She salutes him again, smirking something fierce. "Coming right up, ser."

She leaves him then, and he lets himself relax. He's got his sword, and he unbuckles it to slant it up against the back of the couch, bends down to take off his boots. His armour is still wrapped around the new Prince of Starkhaven, and he'll get it back soon enough, he hopes. 

Maker. Sebastian's the Prince of Starkhaven, now. How much can change in a day?

He dwells on it until the door opens and a couple of pretty girls in Starkhaven red bustle in with trays. They give him deep curtsies, and he has no idea how they don't drop anything, but then they're laying it all on a table for him, setting out wine and pastries and fine-cut raw vegetables, alongside a nice bit of fish in a citrusy sauce he can smell from his seat on the couch. They eye him with obvious interest, bobbing those curties every time he so much as looks at him, and bustle out again with their trays, skirts flouncing in their wake.

There's so much food he's half expecting Ser Maglene to come back in and help him finish it up, but when there's no sign of her he polishes it off, too hungry to deny he wants it. It's delicious, the pastry delicate, the vegetables crisp and sour, the fish tender as fuck on a bed of soft white rice. He's wary of the wine, because he's already so tired, but the rest goes down easy.

When he's done he feels full for once, replete and lethargic, and he wonders what he's supposed to do with himself as he 'tarries'. And for how long? Tristram said 'a day or two' and Carver's worried about that. Callion wants him court-martialled? What does that mean for the knights under his command? Carver hopes they'll be all right, trusts Tristram to protect them. That's his job, right? Protecting Carver? And Carver's job is to protect his corporals and knights from the trickle-down of shit from the top. That's what being an officer is, after all, making hard decisions and taking the brunt of things so his people can do what they have to without worrying all the time.

He lies against the arm of the couch, going over the worst-case scenarios -- Carver court-martialled, his knights punished, Tristram demoted, everything gone wrong. He's worked himself up into a fine brood by the time the door opens again.

This time the girls bring in a tub, and they set it up in the corner, tugging silk screens about it for privacy, before going off to fetch bucket after bucket of steaming water. Carver feels bad about it -- can't he just head down to the Palace baths? He wonders if the palace even _has_ baths. But, surely the servants have a wash room. He could wash up there, he could say something to that effect. He doesn't, just lets them lug in their buckets and fill the tub for him, feeling useless and fretful all the while.

When they're done, one of them lingers, fussing over the soaps and things on the stand left ready for his use. 

"Can I do anything for ye, messere?" she asks, tossing her chestnut hair and smiling.

"I'll be fine. Thankyou." Carver waits for her to leave so he can get undressed but she doesn't, just waits, smoothing out her skirts and _smiling_ so.

"No need to be shy, ser Knight. I'd be happy to scrub yer back. If you like."

And her smile deepens in a way that Carver ... oh. _Oh._

It's a bit of a shock, really, and Carver shakes his head, red-faced and foolish. "No, I'm ... no need. Thanks."

She sighs, and flicks her skirts at him. "Well, let me know if you change yer mind, messere." And she leaves him, but so slowly and with so many backward looks that Carver blushes over it. 

Starkhaven girls. So forward. Maker bless 'em.

He strips down, washing up a little in a bucket before climbing into the tub. The water's hot and welcome, and he groans as he sinks into it, feeling his muscles unwinding all their tension. Fuck, he's _old_. Nearly twenty-five, now, practically an old man, the way his joints ache at him.

He soaks himself, washing his hair and slicking it back out of his eyes. All his wounds are closed up, mostly healed thanks to Levyn, though they itch at him. He's a bit leery of wasting the water, but there's no-one else to use it up after him, so he searches through the soaps until he finds one that smells of apples, and goes over himself from head to toe, basking in the heat and comfort of the water.

He's done, just soaking again, when he hears the door open.

That _girl_. 

"I'm fine!" he calls out. "I don't need my back scrubbed or, or anything!" Because it's obvious what the 'anything' was. He should be flattered, honestly. Pretty girls offering to scrub his back? When did he get so old that he'd say no to _that_?

But it's not because he's _old_ , it's because--

"Are you certain of that?"

He twists, the familiar notes of _that voice_ jerking him around like a dog on a leash. " _Fenris_."

Fenris is standing in the gap betwixt the screens. He's dressed in a clean, crisp shirt, belted at the waist, with trousers in Starkhaven crimson beneath. His feet are bare and there's black and red embroidery at his collar and cuffs. He has a bottle of wine in one hand, dangling from his bare fingers.

He looks _good_. And he's looking at Carver as though .... well, as though Carver's naked in a bath, and Carver feels his face heat even as his blood thickens beneath the water.

"I didn't know it was you," he says, feeling off-balance.

Fenris cocks his head, watching him intently. Carver feels very, _very_ naked, but there's nothing he can do about it and, anyway, it isn't as though Fenris has never seen him naked before. "Who has been offering to scrub your back for you?"

"One of the serving girls," Carver tells him. Fenris' brow draws down, and Carver snorts, because of _course_. "Don't be like that. I said _no_ , after all."

It seems to mollify him. He comes in, anyhow, setting the bottle down to tug a stool up behind Carver's head. "Then, may I scrub your back?"

Carver doesn't need it, but there's no way in the void that he's going to say no. "Yeah, sure." He turns away, leans forward, hugging his knees up to his chest, and Fenris takes a moment to roll up his sleeves before dipping his hands into the water.

His fingers are firm on Carver's back and Carver groans, despite how much he'd told himself he wouldn't make a sound. Fenris hums, content. Carver closes his eyes. 

It's like the years have stripped away, and he's just a junior knight, sitting in Fenris' bath, with Fenris' hands on him. Maker, how he misses it all, Fenris and the little space they made for themselves so long ago. The only place that ever really, _really_ felt like home.

Fenris kneads at him for a bit, digging his fingers into the knots in Carver's shoulders, and Carver tries so hard not to groan again but it's beyond him.

All Fenris does is grunt, in a satisfied sort of way. "I heard you were staying here in the palace," he says. "I wanted to see you."

"I'm glad you're here." Carver licks his lips, steam dripping off his face. "Are ... are you okay? And, um, your Tully? And Orana?"

"We are all safe and well," he says, running a thumb down the divot beside Carver's spine. It makes Carver twitch, and he tries to hold still. "Sebastian has made sure of that. And you are well, are you not?"

"Yeah. Pretty good." Almost healed, but so exhausted. He closes his eyes, content to just let Fenris do whatever he wants with him.

"I am glad." The hands on Carver's back still for a moment, fingertips pressing into his skin. "I worried, but it seems you are impossible to kill."

"Don't know about that," Carver says, feeling self-conscious and silly for it. He could have died, nearly did. He's pretty sure he's been doing a lot of that lately, and he wonders when his luck is going to run dry. "Just lucky, really."

"Mmmm." Fenris rubs him down from shoulder to hip, his hands firm and sure beneath the water. Carver shivers, feeling his skin prick up with goose-flesh. He hopes Fenris won't stop. "I will not say no to luck, if it keeps your heart beating in your body."

The way he says _body_ , though, makes Carver acutely aware of how naked he is beneath the water, and how unhidden.

"I admit, I have a selfish reason for being glad of it." Fenris trails his fingers up the length of Carver's back, tickling over his shoulders up to the nape of his neck, to run his fingertips through Carver's hair. "There are things I wish to say to you, if you are ready to hear them."

Carver swallows, his scalp tingling beneath those long, pointed fingers. "Good things?"

"That depends on whether or not you want them," Fenris says. His fingers still, as if he's hesitating, and Carver can't bear it.

He twists about, sloshing water to catch Fenris' hands in his palms and hold on to them. "I'm pretty sure I do," he says, drinking in the sight of those green, green eyes with their dark lashes, the fall of Fenris' hair all white feathers on his brow. Carver wants to push that hair back so he does, despite the water on his fingers, and Fenris blinks at him, watching him as hard as Carver is watching _him_.

"Then." Fenris sits back, tugging his hands away to reach for the bottle. "Will you have some wine? It is a good vintage, Sebastian tells me. Starkhaven-pressed, laid down when his grandfather was still living."

It takes Carver a moment to catch up. "Um. Sure?" Then he frowns. "Should I be dressed for this?"

"Only if you wish to be," Fenris tells him, but Carver has a sudden need to be out of the bath, so he forces himself to his feet, grabbing a towel to dry himself off, and it's only once he's out that he remembers how _naked_ he is, while Fenris is watching.

Because Fenris _is_ watching. He makes no effort to hide it, his eyes roaming over Carver's nakedness, but he makes no move to do anything except watch, and Carver blushes and turns away, aware that now he's presenting Fenris with a fine view of his bare arse.

Still, Fenris does nothing until Carver is finished, with a towel wrapped about his hips, and then he tips his head, rising gracefully to his feet.

"Come. Dry yourself out by the fire."

He _says_ , as if this is _his_ room and not _Carver's_.

But. Carver goes, and flops down on the couch, weary with the last day, the last week, the last _month_. It's all catching up to him and he cracks his jaw with a yawn, before accepting a cup of dark red wine.

It's ... good? Soft and smooth and fruity, thick on his tongue. It tastes expensive. He supposes that's because it is, but he doesn't know anything about wine so he just tells Fenris it's, "Nice."

Fenris smirks, tugging his feet up beneath him. He's pulled his chair close, and Carver could reach out to him now, could twine their fingers together. He remembers Fenris' hand caught in his, while he was lying on the ground under the stars and ... dying. All right, he can admit it. He really _was_ dying. He doesn't know why he didn't. A blessing of the Maker, maybe, but ... no. No that doesn't feel right. It must have been something else.

Fenris, maybe.

Fenris frowns now, down into his cup. "I meant what I said, Hawke. I will court you, if you allow it."

Carver has to take a moment to breathe. "I'll allow it," he says, feeling like his chest is full of fog rising up to smother him. "You can court me all you want. But--"

"But?" Fenris glances up, eyes gone wide.

"But," Carver says, lightheaded. It can't be the wine, he's had barely half a glass. "You don't have to. Just say it. If you want me." If he says it. "Then I'm yours. Don't you know that?"

Fenris breathes out, squeezing his eyes shut, and Carver sees his knuckles gone white on his cup. "No. No, you must not make it easy for me. I deserve ... no."

"So you're telling me 'no' now?" Carver huffs out a breath, because of course Fenris is making this difficult. It's _Fenris_. "And here I thought you _wanted_."

That gets him. Fenris jerks, eyes gone wide, and he grabs at the hand Carver's left hanging over the side of the couch, gripping it tight. "I do want. I _want_ , and ... You deserve more than this. Something ... some grand declaration, but--"

But Carver's done with this, so he squeezes Fenris back just as hard. "I think you've made enough enough grand declarations." He can't help the shape of his face, the way his mouth curves up, everything he feels out there for anyone to see. "I haven't forgotten. What you said." In the Fade. At the camp. That kiss, with darkspawn dead at their feet. And waking, with Fenris' fingers tight on his own, twined between. He twines them together now, willing Fenris to feel everything he feels, though he knows that's impossible. He has to _say_ it. 

Fenris looks ... frightened? But not of Carver, never of Carver, and Carver lifts Fenris' knuckles to his mouth, brushing them with a kiss while his heart tries to beat a hole right through his ribcage.

"Can we try again? I'd like that. I'd like that a whole fucking lot."

And Fenris bares his teeth, this terrible grimace, before he leans up over the side of the couch to put his mouth to Carver's cheek. "Please. If you will have me."

As if he has to ask. Carver tilts his head to find Fenris' mouth, and Fenris is open for him, his lips wet with wine and soft as silk. It's sweet and lovely, but Carver doesn't really want sweet, so he presses his tongue against Fenris' lip, nipping at him with his teeth when Fenris doesn't seem to get it, and then Fenris makes a rough sound in his throat and presses _in_.

And now it's perfect.

Carver needs a free hand, so he sets his cup down blindly on the floor, overblown with the taste of Fenris in his mouth. He runs his fingers up into Fenris's hair, teasing the silky strands between his fingers. Fenris makes a deep noise and Carver tries to swallow it, tries to draw him in, never wants this to be over.

This is it. This is everything. This is all he's ever wanted.

Eventually, though, they have to come up for breath. Fenris sighs, settling back in his chair and licking his lips, eyes heavy-lidded. He doesn't let go of Carver's hand, though, and Carver sinks down on the arm of the couch, chin pillowed on his forearm, just watching him. Fuck, he's beautiful. Carver has no idea how much of that is because he's in love with Fenris, has always been in love with Fenris, and how much is just because Fenris is, well, beautiful.

He doesn't care. 

"Had enough, then?" he asks, rubbing his thumb over the delicate bones of Fenris' wrist.

Fenris snorts, eyeing him from beneath those dark lashes. "I will never have my fill of you, it seems."

"Sounds like you're willing to _try_ ," Carver teases, but it's ruined by the enormous yawn that works its way up his throat.

Fenris regards him for a moment, and then-- "You should be resting."

"Probably. But I don't want you to _go_."

It makes Fenris frown. Then he rises, tugging Carver's hand. "Come. To bed with you. I will not leave you, if you wish me to stay."

Carver forces himself up, makes himself stand with one hand braced on the couch. "I'm not ... I mean." How to say it? "I'm pretty tired, Fenris. Not good for much tonight but sleeping."

"Then all I will do is put you to bed and keep you warm. For tonight," Fenris says, and Carver feels a marvellous thrill at the way Fenris _says_ it.

Tonight. But tomorrow?

Fenris shuffles him into bed. The thing is _enormous_ and soft as a dream. Carver goes into it willingly, shucking his towel and spreading out bare-arsed beneath the covers. It smells of lavender and Andraste's Grace. But more than that -- Fenris peels off his clothes, laying them carefully over the back of the couch, and then he stokes the fire, naked, and fills their cups, naked, and comes to bed.

Maker. Carver's hard under the covers just from watching him, and when Fenris props himself against the bed-head, cup in hand, Carver desperately wishes he had the energy to roll him onto his back and kiss every bit of him he could reach.

But.

Tomorrow. Maybe. For now he'll soak himself in the wonderful knowledge that Fenris is here with him, and wants to be.

Fenris trails a hand over Carver's cheek, and Carver knows it's the scar he's touching now. He feels ... he doesn't know. Ashamed? Maybe just awkward.

"It's pretty bad," he says, because one of them has to.

But Fenris shakes his head, fingers trailing over the pebbled flesh. "No. It is simply new, and I wish to learn it. Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore," Carver says, and tells him about Senior Enchanter Edith, and (though he's never said it aloud to anyone) about his eye, and how glad he is to have most of the use of it left.

Fenris frowns. He leans down to kiss the rise of Carver's cheek. "I am glad, also. And that the wound seems superficial. Your shoulder?" He trails his fingers over that too, the burst of scar-tissue spilling tongues down Carver's arm, cutting pink fingers through the ink on his skin.

"It's fine. Pulls a bit, sometimes. But I can still swing a sword around. I mean, I'd be useless if I couldn't do _that_."

"Not useless," Fenris tells him, tracing the edges of the scar, and touching all the little dapples of it that spatter his chest. "But it is good that you are able to do so."

Carver asks him about Sebastian then, as a distraction, and Fenris tells him how Sebastian argued with the Grand Cleric, how he dismissed the Starkhaven nobility, how he called for the refugees to be brought in and then went down to the chapel to pray, and Carver feels bad for him. Poor bloody Sebastian. He never wanted any of this, and Carver's never felt so badly for him before, thinking about how it might have gone if someone had forced _him_ to do the same thing, back in Kirkwall.

Still, it's hard to think on it too heavily, with Fenris here, within arm's reach, stroking and soothing him.

They finish their wine and Fenris gets up to douse the candles, still naked, still beautiful in the soft firelight, and then he comes back to curl against Carver's side. Carver hugs him up against his chest, pressing his nose into the clean softness of Fenris' hair. He smells like flowers, but not chamomile.

"Did you change your soap?" he asks, and Fenris snorts against his shoulder.

"There was very little soap to be had on the exodus from Kirkwall. I have used what was available here. _Lilacs_." He sounds disgusted.

"'S nice," Carver tells him, pressing his face into it and breathing deep.

Fenris rumbles into Carver's skin. "It is _floral_. I do not like it."

"Chamomile is flowers too, though, right?" Carver asks, feeling heavy. He can barely keep his eyes open anymore so he doesn't bother, lets them shut, comfortable with Fenris here beside him.

"It is _different_ ," Fenris insists. And then-- "Go to sleep."

Fenris. Telling him what to do. Like he _owns_ him. It feels _so good_. 

So Carver does as he's told, letting the warmth in his chest carry him under.


	55. Chapter 55

Carver sleeps and now? Now he looks anything but a dead man.

There are shadows beneath his eyes, and he is still so gaunt, so scarred, but besides? His skin is flush with health, his muscles thick and wholesome, all of him straight and good and wondrous.

He's alive. He is _alive_ and Fenris is grateful beyond words to have this; Carver's trust, and if not his forgiveness then at the very least his permission to be here with him while he is vulnerable.

Everything has changed. Two nights past Fenris had eaten a scant bowl of millet hash and gone hungry to his blankets on the ground, facing an uncertain future. Last night his belly was full, his clothes clean, in a bed that was warm and full of Carver's softness. The future is still uncertain, but now? He is hopeful. Sebastian is the prince of Starkhaven, Tully and Orana have been brought into the palace, are safe there in rooms set aside for them by their prince. And Sebastian has offered them so much. Fenris has accepted all of it, content in the belief that his friend will not misuse him.

He hopes. And he hopes much of Carver, also.

The sun comes up, greying the edges of the curtains, and Carver stirs but does not wake. It used to be that Fenris was the one to lie lazily abed while Carver griped and prodded at him, nagging him awake. But Fenris is now accustomed to the early-morning chatter of a child wanting play, and Carver is truly exhausted. Fenris watches him sleep, watches the light brighten to gold, watches it gild the lines of Carver's cheek and his shoulder, bared above the sheets.

Ink writhes over his skin, some of it unfamiliar. There is the Sword of Mercy that Fenris remembers, but now crested with a Chantry sunburst. The hawk spanning his broad shoulders has been filled in, where before it was only an outline. Fenris tugs the sheet down to look at it, and it is a beautifully detailed thing, a work of art, though Fenris cannot shed the feeling that it, like Carver's scars, mars something otherwise perfect.

It extends halfway to Carver's waist, and Fenris pulls the sheet down further, seeking new ink. There's nothing below it but that Mabari, the lines blurring into Carver's skin. Fenris touches it, feeling the soft-hardness of muscle, the plumpness of Carver's flesh.

Carver stirs, mumbling something. 

"Shh," Fenris says, bending down to kiss his neck. "Sleep."

But Carver sighs, tilting his head to blink blearily over his shoulder. "Fenris?"

"I'm here."

Carver shifts, rolling full onto his belly. "You feeling up my arse, then?" he asks in a sleepy slur, and he wriggles, waggling his rear like a puppy. "Got something in mind?"

"You need to rest," Fenris says, but Carver chuckles, pressing back against Fenris' palm.

"I could just lie here," he says, the wretch, and Fenris thinks, _Yes._

But. "I do not wish to hurt you."

"You won't." He yawns, settling his arms beneath his head, pillowing his cheek on the backs of his hands and blinking up at Fenris still soft with sleep. "But, y'know. If you're _not_ interested..."

Fenris cannot deny that he is, as he cannot deny the thickening of his cock, nor the fact that Carver knows it, can no doubt feel Fenris hard against his hip. And Carver parts his thighs, inviting Fenris between them in a way that is so familiar it seems out of true to ignore it.

So Fenris sits up, rummaging in the cabinet beside the bed. There are many things there, set out for guests. Perhaps there is something ... There. He chooses a phial of oil, unobtrusive and unmarked, and when he opens it he finds it almost scentless, slick and perfect for what he intends.

Carver sighs again as Fenris touches him, at the pressure of kisses down his spine, the tease of fingertips between the smooth halves of his arse. He rumbles in his throat, lazily content to lie there and let Fenris have his way.

It is so familiar, and Fenris cannot help the stab of doubt that goes through him -- this is real and not a fantasy. He would never fantasise this, a room in the palace of Starkhaven. He would never fantasise Carver with new ink, with a scar covering one cheek and one shoulder. In his fantasy Carver would have rolled onto his back and spread his thighs wide, beckoning Fenris down between them, red-mouthed and breathless and demanding.

But now he is soft, so Fenris is soft with him, stroking the tightness of his flesh and sliding into him in slow, insistent increments. He is warm, inside and all over, and Fenris remembers winter mornings wrapped up in the warmth of Carver's arms, winter evenings when Carver would let him press his icy feet to Carver's warm ones, nights spent making slow love beneath the welter of blankets. All of this. He can have it again. Carver is _allowing_ it.

Carver makes it plain when he's had enough of fingers, and then he does grow demanding. "C'mon, Fenris, I'm good. I swear, just ... come _on_ , I want you."

"What do you want of me?" Fenris asks, because this is an old game, and now Carver growls at him, hands clutching the pillows into fistfuls.

"Fuck, Fenris, just ... fuck me, okay? Will you? Or are you just gunna tease me?"

It would be cruel to tease him, and Fenris cannot bear waiting any longer, so he gives Carver what he's asking for, climbing up over him and pressing in. He tries to be patient about it but Carver growls and bucks, and Fenris curses, burying himself in Carver's flesh. It makes Carver keen and brace his hands against the mattress, the muscles of his back flexing as he rocks back onto Fenris' cock, lifting his hips off the bed to meet him.

It's been so long, but it feels so familiar. So good to press a palm between Carver's shoulders to hold him down, to curl a hand around his hip and thrust in. The way Carver _writhes_ for him, his soft cursing and begging, his breathlessness as he importunes Fenris to go harder, to just, "Do it, Maker, don't make me _wait_!"

And it _has_ been so long, and Fenris cannot resist him like this. Not this nor any other way, so he reaches beneath to take Carver in hand, stroking him with every roll of his hips, until Carver clenches up, gasping and spilling and moaning his pleasure.

This, this, this. How Fenris loves him, how he _needs_. And Fenris bows over him, jerking into him until he cannot bear it any longer, the throb of release stealing his breath away.

In the aftermath, Carver groans, one hand coming back to fit about Fenris' hip, tugging him up close. "Don't ... don't go yet. Just a bit longer."

How could Fenris deny him? He sinks then to catch his breath, tucking himself up, tugging Carver onto his side with one knee rucked up, so Fenris can stay with him like this. Just for a little while.

Eventually, Carver sighs, tilting his head. "Do I get a kiss, then?"

Fenris stretches to catch his mouth, scraping Carver's lip with his teeth. Carver hums and licks at him, and he seems content. Sated. 

Good. So he should be. Fenris will sate his appetites again and again, but for now it is good that he is satisfied. Fenris will not let him go hungry for this, never.

They must uncouple, however, and Fenris takes himself to the bathtub, dragging a washcloth over the surface to remove the soapy residue and washing himself with the chilly water.

Carver grumbles at him when Fenris swipes a cold cloth over his nethers, but he allows it, and then he rolls onto his back, arms coming up to take Fenris in them. He wants kisses; Fenris gives them up, letting himself wallow in the comfort of the lover he had (almost) given up for lost.

Of course, Carver can only be quiet for so long, and when he rouses he wants to talk. "Just ... we're doing this, right? So we should do it right."

"As you wish," Fenris says, though he feels disquieted. Is it not enough that they are together? That Carver's flesh fits still to his own flesh, and that they can find solace in one another? Surely, that is enough. But if Carver wants, Fenris will not refuse him. "What are your demands?"

It makes Carver snort. " _Demands,_ " he says, his tone dripping with derision. "Like it's a trade deal. No, I just want it to be good. None of the ... you know, all the things that went wrong before." He blinks, his hand closing over Fenris' bicep, squeezing him possessively. "I want this to _last_. I want you to know that you're it for me, that I'm not going anywhere, and you can joke all you want but I'm _not_ looking for anything but _you_. Is that okay?"

It is marvellous. Fenris nods, swallowing against the lump in his throat. "Yes."

"Good." Carver settles on his back, his hands roaming over Fenris' chest, his shoulders, his arms. He frowns, thinking, and Fenris waits impatiently for the product of his thoughts. "Okay. So. We can't keep secrets, Fenris. I mean ... you have to tell me when you're upset, and why you're upset, so I can stop doing whatever it is you're upset about or, you know. Argue with you. When you're wrong. Because sometimes you're just _wrong_ , you know that?"

He says it with painful earnestness, and Fenris resists the urge to deny it because ... has he not by his own admission been wrong before? So. "I will not keep secrets from you."

"And you can't lie to me, either." Carver is firm on this, even as he strokes Fenris' shoulder so gently. "I won't lie or keep things from you. So ... be honest with me. Okay?"

It sounds so small, but it is an enormity. To expose himself to Carver, to let Carver see his every worry and fear. And yet it is _Carver_ , who has never hurt him, or at least has never knowingly done so, not intentionally. Carver, who tried so hard when Fenris did not even know what it was that he wanted, tried to satisfy him all the same.

So. "I will be honest with you," Fenris says, and then he straddles Carver's hips, bowing over him. "In honesty, I am not entirely satisfied that I have had enough of you this morning."

Carver grins, running a hand up Fenris' thigh. "Oh? What do you want, then?"

Fenris kisses him, revelling in the breadth of human hands across his back, sliding down to cup his hips, in the spread of human thighs gone wide for him, and the clench of Carver's flesh as he permits Fenris to have of him. His mouth is hungry so Fenris gives himself up to it, lets Carver suck on his tongue even as he drives down hard between Carver's legs, until Carver shakes and _shakes_ , jerking over and over as he spends himself. And Fenris growls, taking him as roughly as he dares, the way he knows Carver likes best.

When Fenris shatters, lyrium bursting from his pores, Carver is there, a rock to cling to, kissing his knuckles and his shoulder and his cheek, murmuring love against his skin.

And then they have to wash up again. This time Carver gets up, dousing himself in chilly water and griping about it, but still he catches at Fenris' hips, hands roving over his buttocks and thighs, his mouth gone weak and his eyes half-lidded in contentment.

Fenris cannot seem to stop kissing him, and Carver is in no way reluctant, tugging Fenris back toward the bed. Fenris has him hard up against the edge of it, is pressed between his thighs, both of them naked with only the cloth of a towel separating them, when the door opens.

Both of them freeze, turning toward it, and the serving-girl in the doorway draws in a sharp breath before lowering her gaze.

She dips a curtsey, blushing like a furnace, before coming in just far enough to set down her covered tray. Then she darts another quick glance at them before curtseying herself out the door.

Carver lets out a shuddering breath. "Uh ... huh." He blinks hard, red as a strawberry all the way to his ears. "I ... sorry about that?"

But Fenris is not sorry, and he pinches Carver sharply on the outer fold of his knee. "Do not be. I am unashamed."

"She's going to _tell_ people," Carver complains, but there is something in it that makes Fenris certain he is not ashamed either.

"Then let her. I am glad of it. I want everyone to know that you are not available to them."

Carver laughs, dropping back on the bed and laying his head amongst the rucked-up covers. "Oh? Want everyone to know I'm yours, then?"

"Yes, " Fenris says, feeling it deep in his gut. He curls his fingers around Carver's hips, thrusting up against him through the cloth barrier between them. "You are _mine_. I will suffer no challengers in this."

"All yours," Carver sighs, and he grins, this careless joyful grin as if Fenris has given him the world. It is ruined, somewhat, by the loud rumble of his stomach. He catches his lip in his teeth, suddenly bashful. "Sorry. Um. Is that breakfast, then?"

They eat in bed, and the wealth of food is astonishing to Fenris, who has lived on half-rations for so long. Carver moans over the potato bread -- 'tattie scones' he calls it -- and the black pudding that Fenris does not want to touch. He licks his lips with relish, and Fenris wipes a little juice from his face with a cloth, pleased by the way that Carver's eyes flutter closed and how he leans into Fenris' hand.

Again. They should go again, Fenris should shove him down in the covers and have him _again_ , but just as he is about to take the empty dishes away to make room for Carver's debauchment, there comes a hard rap at the door.

Carver tugs the sheet about his hips, and tries to do the same for Fenris before calling, "Come!"

The templar at the door is a woman, young and healthy, with dark hair and narrow dark eyes that take them both in with a certain ... satisfaction. "I heard you were awake, ser," she says, cutting a neat salute. There's a servant with her, who bustles in with an armload of what looks like Carver's plate and robes, setting it down on a chair before curtseying and leaving as fast as she can.

The Templar does not. She nods to Fenris. "Good morning, serrah," she says, closing the door.

He nods back, wary of her, but she settles her feet and tucks her hands behind her back, eyes fixed on Carver.

Carver breathes out. "Ser Maglene. Uh ... Good morning."

Her smile is sly, like her eyes, but she does not cast suggestive looks Fenris' way and for that he is glad. Though. If she had then he would have done his best to deserve them.

"I'd ask if you slept well, ser," she says, "but you look ... very much rested."

"Yeah." Carver has come over pink, so Fenris brushes the backs of his fingers over the exposed skin of Carver's thigh, willing him to be brazen. Perhaps he is, because he says, "What do you want of me, Ser Maglene?"

She lifts her chin, all business now. "The Prince returns your uniform, with his thanks. He's looking for his Guard Captain, by the by."

Carver frowns, opening his mouth, but he seems to take in the significant look she sends Fenris' way and then he stops himself. When he turns to Fenris he looks … confused? A little outraged, perhaps. " _You?_ "

Fenris shrugs, though he cannot help feeling a little smug exhilaration. "Did I not mention it?"

"No! You _know_ you didn't … Fenris!"

"Are you angry?" Fenris teases, frowning in mock seriousness. "If I had known it would anger you I might have said no."

"I'm mad you didn't _tell_ me," Carver grumbles, but no, he's pleased, Fenris can see it. 

Good. He can live with that. 

He pushes the sheet aside and stands up, ignoring Ser Maglene's startled jerk, and dresses himself quickly. When he turns back Carver is red-faced, darting sidelong glances at his knight, but Fenris does not care about her, or what she sees. Let her know that Carver is his, and what it is that Carver has chosen. Let her gossip as she likes. 

"I must attend my prince," he says, because that is what Sebastian is, now. But, because of what Carver is, he goes to him, kisses Carver's mouth as deeply as he dares. 

Carver wraps an arm around him and lets Fenris do as he pleases. But when Fenris pulls away Carver makes such a face. "Hurry back," he says.

It's good, and Fenris nods. "I will not keep you waiting longer than I must." 

Then he nods to the knight and goes out to find the man he has sworn to serve. Willingly, a thing he had never thought he would do. And knowing Carver is waiting for him, a thing he had never thought he could have again.

This is what he wants. Carver well, and Carver happy, and Carver _his_. All he can hope for now is that they can make it last.


	56. Chapter 56

_Three weeks later_

The mansion hasn't been occupied in years, and it shows, dust and debris strewn about, mouse leavings and cobwebs in every room. There's some furnishings but they're dusty, chewed on, stuffing pulled out to line rodent nests and the like, curtains stained with mildew. There's mushrooms growing in the foyer, between tiles that lift under his boots.

Carver grins. "It's great," he says. "I like it."

"It's a wreck," Lachlan mutters, working his shoulder in his irritation.

"It's got loads of bedrooms, and a walled courtyard. It's defensible," Carver adds, because that's an important consideration, given the givens.

"It smells like mouldy _arse_ ," Lachlan argues, kicking at a loose tile. "Who'd live here?"

"I dunno, Knight Corporal," and Carver turns to the others. "What do you think?"

Keili and Varania exchange glances. Keili's expression is unreadable; Varania's is nearly the same, but it blooms into a scowl that is heart-stoppingly familiar. "It is decrepit," she says slowly, "but it can be improved. With work."

"It's perfect." Keili smiles, just a bit, glancing about at the old run-down mansion. Carver wonders what she sees. Freedom, perhaps. A little, anyway.

"So you think the other mages will like it?" It feels both strange and good to ask. Strange, because Templars don't usually ask how mages might feel about anything, and good because … well, the same reason, really.

Keili nods, turning that tiny smile on him for a moment before smoothing it out. "I think so."

So that's that.

Back at the Chantry compound, Carver signs Keili and Varania in and turns to his Knight Corporal. "Well? What are you up to this afternoon?"

Lachlan looks shifty for a moment, then he sighs, messing with his tassets. "Thought I'd visit my Da. If I may, ser."

Callion, who has stepped down in the wake of Tristram's wholesale takeover of the barracks. Alive, though, and for that Carver's grateful. He'd have lost Lachlan forever if they'd had to step his father down by force, after all. But Tristram made it work, somehow, managed to talk Callion down from _hanging_ Carver for his 'crimes', out of his Commander's gorget and into a modest suite of rooms on the Chantry side of the compound. Callion is still a Templar but retired, no longer Commander here, and Carver's glad that Lachlan means to see him. Can't sit well with him, watching his barracks change without him, and while he wasn't a _good_ Commander, he definitely wasn't the worst Carver's ever had.

Carver claps Lachlan's pauldron with his palm, and gives him a little shake. "Good lad. Get to it, then."

Lachlan salutes him and makes off with himself. Carver watches him go, proud of him, the way he holds himself now and the certainty in his face when he takes his orders. He's done good with that one. And if one day Lachlan turns on him? He'll know that, at least, the boy's thought it through.

Good man. Good knight. And _his_ , for now.

And now. His Commander is waiting on his report, so Carver heads upstairs. There's a pair of recruits on duty outside Tristram's office, and one of them stammers something about the Knight Commander being busy, but Carver waves it off. The boy subsides, and Carver thinks he ought to have a word with him later -- if Tristram is _truly_ busy then Carver ought to have been turned away. Maybe the kid needs a bit of backbone. Maybe--

But when he opens the door he finds Tristram and Fenris sat down to tea.

Carver stops in the doorway, staring at the pair of them. Neither one has the decency to look caught out, they both simply glance up at him. 

Fenris frowns. Tristram smiles, rising from his chair. "Butcher! How's it look?"

"Pretty good, ser," Carver tells him, dropping into parade-stance and ignoring the wide green eyes examining him for … he has no idea. He's _fine_ now, Fenris has no reason to look him over so thoroughly. He's healed and hale, and … anyway, why is Fenris even here? He's in uniform, his crimson tabard crisply laundered and stitched over with the carps and cups of Starkhaven, and he holds his cup as primly perfect as the finest of Orlesian nobles. Now he lifts it, eyes narrowing over the rim as he sips his tea, and Carver forgets whatever he'd meant to say next. He has to shake himself to bring it back. "Uh, yeah. Needs some work, but it'll be worth it, I reckon."

"And Keili?" Tristram drops into his chair, doesn't seem to care that Fenris is there and can hear them discussing Templar business. He leans forward, gesturing with his half-filled cup. "Does she want to be First Enchanter or no?"

"She wants to take a vote," Carver tells him, acutely aware of Fenris watching him. "Amongst the mages. She says it's not fair for the Order to decide who represents them. But she sounds willing, should the vote go her way."

Tristram nods. Carver knows that they're both hoping for Keili, for different reasons. Tristram thinks she's amenable and moderate. Carver thinks she's _amazing_ , and that all the mages look to her already, so why the fuck not?

But Tristram lifts his cup to indicate Fenris sitting neatly across from him. "You've a visitor. I've been taking care of him for you, but I'm not the one the Guard Captain came to see."

Carver nods, turning to Fenris and _oh_ , the way he glances up, green eyes catching Carver and holding him still. Fuck, Carver can't bear him looking _like that_ , not when Tristram can see him, both of them, and Carver's face as he looks right back at Fenris. He can't hide it, not when it spills out of his pores like this. Anyone who looked could see it, and Tristram is the _worst_ , because he sees everything and doesn't seem to think anything is out of bounds for teasing.

Still. Fenris frowns, rising to his feet and setting down his cup. "I thank you for the tea, Knight Commander. I would borrow Ser Carver for the afternoon, if I may. Unless there is any inconvenience--"

"No inconvenience," Tristram says, grinning like a madman. "I don't need my Knight Captain just now. Have at him as you will."

Knight _Captain_. Carver still can't get over that, stands up straighter just hearing it from Tristram's mouth. 

This time, he feels like he really did earn it. Tristram made a grand and convoluted explanation when he asked it of Carver, winding on into arguments that included Carver's loyalty, his record, his familiarity with mages, and a bit about Sebastian that Carver rejected at once. But, in the end, Tristram had leaned over the desk and caught Carver' hand in his own. 

"I want you, Butcher," he'd said, dark eyes wide with sincerity. "I _need_ you."

"To be your balls, ser?" Carver had asked, and Tristram had spilled over into a wild guffaw that left him hunched over his own desk in exaggerated delight.

" _Yes_ , Butcher, exactly that!"

So here they are. It's like a dream.

Fenris reaches for his hand. "Will you come with me?"

What else can Carver say?

"Sure." And he ignores Tristram's snort as he follows Fenris out.

He can't go walking through the compound holding hands with the Captain of the Royal Guard, though, so he gives Fenris' gauntlet a squeeze and lets it go, tucking his hands safely behind his back. "Where are we going?"

Fenris' frown deepens. "The Knight Commander told me you were house-hunting," he says darkly. "It sounds as though you have been successful in that endeavour."

It's true enough. "Yeah. Nice place, not too far from the compound."

"And you feel it is ideal," Fenris growls, his frown twisting into a scowl. "Permit me to present you with another option."

What? Carver opens his mouth to ask what he means, but Fenris has already turned away, leading him out of the compound and into the streets of Starkhaven.

It's a lovely day. They're coming on to winter but the late autumn is dry enough for comfort. The streets will be all over mud and slush when winter hits. For now, though, Carver enjoys the crisp autumn air, the scent of baking apples and hot sugar that drifts from street-carts and shop-fronts, the beautiful pastry-smell that seems to make up for all the fish eaten here. (Carver likes fish, likes river-fish even better, but the smell can be overpowering and he imagines Fenris must hate it badly.)

He doesn't ask where they're going again, content to trail along at Fenris' elbow, admiring his sharp profile. It's good to see him out on the streets, and the way that people look at him here -- in Kirkwall they had ignored him or shied away in fear, but in Starkhaven? Those carps and cups go a long way toward forcing politeness. People _smile_ at Fenris, the same way they smile at Carver in his uniform, and there are even some bows and curtsies and 'good day, serrah's tossed his way.

So Carver isn't really paying attention, until Fenris stops, turning to him very seriously.

"You must knock," he says.

Carver doesn't get it. They're in one of the nicer districts of the merchant quarter, where shops butt up against two-story houses with flowers in the window-boxes. They've stopped outside one such, a pleasant enough building over-crept with jasmine. There's a bakery on one side and a tailor's across the way, and Carver just gives Fenris a 'what?' look because … well, what?

Fenris sighs. "Just. Knock," he says, and he turns on his heel, shoving open the front door of the house and closing it behind him.

Carver … okay, no, he doesn't get it. Still, Fenris said, so he steps up to the door and raps on it.

Immediately it opens. Fenris holds it wide, gesturing into the hall. "Please, come in."

Puzzled, Carver goes in. It's dingy inside, dusty with disuse, but a pleasant enough house all the same. It's empty, too, unfurnished, the walls bare of pictures or hangings, the windows covered in dust-cloths. Carver smothers a sneeze, and looks to Fenris for an explanation.

"Well?" Fenris asks, spreading his hands as if inviting Carver to inspect the place.

Carver looks again. It's a _good_ house, the entryway neatly made, and the parlour letting off from it cosy but well fitted-out with a fireplace and a wide street-facing window. At the end of the hall he thinks he can see a kitchen, behind a set of stairs leading to a second floor, and Carver thinks it's _lovely_ , or could be made lovely, with a bit of work.

It's small, though -- big for a family but far too small to house all the mages currently jammed into the Compound like sardines in a tin. Plus, the barracks are overflowing as it is, and Carver's hoping to have a bunch of Templars stationed on rotation in the new Circle to ease their numbers a bit. This place? Hardly big enough at all.

Carver's about to say so, but Fenris scowls at him. "Come upstairs," he demands, turning to lead Carver up. There's bedrooms on the second floor, four of them, and Fenris takes him into the largest of them. "Here," he says, gesturing. 

The room has a window over the street, shutters at the back of it that open onto the tiniest balcony Carver's ever seen. It looks over the yard, a high-walled space with a sturdy walnut-tree in the middle of it surrounded by ornamental brickwork. There's room for a garden down there, if some of the bricks were pulled up. Carver imagines someone could be happy here, but not his mages.

"It's nice," Carver says slowly, not sure how to put it. "But it's too small."

"Small?" Fenris glances about as if counting rooms. "I thought it … it is not grand but it is more than adequate."

"There's not enough room," Carver says, sorry about it but it's true. "Not for all the kids. I--"

"Kids?" Fenris' mouth falls open, his eyes wide as saucers. "You mean children?"

What else could he bloody mean? "Well, I don't mean _goats_."

Fenris has his hands flattened against his belly, and he looks deeply upset. "How many?"

"Only two dozen or so to start, but there'll be more. Listen, Fenris, I get that you're trying to help, but--"

"And who will bear these dozens of children for you?" Fenris demands, hands knotting into angry fists.

"No-one has to … wait up." He stops, backtracks a little, and thinks. "I'm talking about the apprentices, Fenris. What are _you_ talking about?"

Fenris just stares at him. And then his expression clears. "I thought ... augh." He scrubs a hand over his face, and when he appears from behind it he's so sheepish. "Your Commander told me you were house-hunting. I assumed it was for you."

"Why would I be looking for a house for _me_?" Carver shakes his head, bewildered by it all. "There's not enough room in the Chantry compound. We've got all these mages, now, and they need somewhere to live. So Merida gave us leave to find somewhere to stash them. You know. A Circle." The new Starkhaven Circle, Tristram's first project as Knight Commander. _And it's going to be better, this time,_ Carver thinks, doggedly hopeful about that. He'll do everything he can to make it so. For his father, and Bethany. For Garrett. For all of them.

Fenris breathes out, his shoulders sagging. "How foolish I have been," he mutters, and Carver feels something in his chest lurch at the sight of Fenris so thoroughly dejected.

"You thought I was looking for a house?" For dozens of children, Maker's _breath_.

Fenris nods, not meeting his eye. "Yes."

"And you found this for me?" Carver glances about, taking it all in again. It's a nice house, but too big for one Templar with no family of his own. Still. "I do like it."

"Not for you." Fenris clears his throat, squaring his shoulders. "This house is mine. Sebastian deeded it to me in gratitude, he says, for services rendered the Crown. I hoped … I had wanted to wait until it was furnished to show you, but when I heard … I did not want you to choose one for yourself without seeing this."

It all clicks into place. The neat little parlour. The kitchen. The upstairs bedrooms and the high-walled garden. "You're moving Orana and Tully in, right?" 

"Yes," Fenris says, watching him intently.

Fenris' own little family, in a place that belongs to them, somewhere small and safe and all their own. Maker, it's perfect.

He reaches for Fenris' hand. "This is your room, then?"

Fenris shakes his head, curling his gauntleted fingers around Carver's own. "Not mine. Not _alone_. I thought … I hoped you might share it with me."

Oh. Maker. Carver squeezes his hand until the joints of their armour creak with it. "Are you asking me to come live with you?"

Fenris looks up, eyes wide and hopeful. "Yes. Will you?"

 _Will_ he?

How could he possibly say no?

But Fenris looks so stiffly uncertain, and Carver can't bear it, so he catches Fenris up against his chest and kisses him until Fenris unstiffens to coil his arms about Carver's neck.

"Should I take that as a 'yes', then?" Fenris asks, pink-cheeked and breathless.

"Yeah," Carver tells him, grinning like a madman. "Yeah, you really fucking should."

* * *

The apprentices love their new mansion. They run up and down the stairs, giggling and shouting and trickling magic about in their wakes. Discipline is loose right now, and Carver can't bring himself to rein them in, though he yells at them when they get too boisterous. Some of them clam right up when he does that and others roll their eyes, calming down only long enough for him to turn his back and then they're at it again, using magic to get their chores done faster so they can play hide-and-seek in what used to be the servants quarters.

"Shouldn't we put a stop to that?" Carver asks, watching a girl knock spiders and webs down from the ceiling with a carefully focussed whirlwind.

Keili seems largely unconcerned. "What is the use in making them labour over their chores? This, at least, hones their magic. Scrubbing floors and dusting are not meaningful skills for a mage to master."

It's true, but worrying all the same. "I thought mages weren't supposed to use magic for, you know. Frivolous things."

She eyes him with interest. Her cowl is down, her hair prettily braided into an elaborate knot, and she meets his eye now, when she never used to do. Carver likes _this_ Keili, First Enchanter Keili, a good deal more than the quiet, flinching Keili he'd met back in Kirkwall. Still, the directness of her regard is disconcerting, coming from her.

"Your brother and sister were apostates, were they not?" When all he does is stare at her she nods, just a little. "And your mother told them not to use their magic for things like this."

"My father," he corrects, but it's true. Father had beaten Garrett for it, when he'd caught Garrett splitting wood with a Force spell instead of an axe. The memory stuck, one of the few times Carver had ever seen his brother cry. "He said it was dangerous to 'rely on magic for the mundane'. Too easy to forget how to do it the hard way."

"Your father was correct. But they were apostates, hiding from notice. An apostate who forgets herself is at risk of giving herself away." To the Templars, she doesn't say, but Carver hears it anyway. "But these are apprentice mages within the Circle. The only reason we are ever told not to use magic is to control us. At least, that is how I felt about it when _I_ was an apprentice, punished for using magic to finish her chores."

Because of course. Keili grew up in the Circle, and Carver tries now to imagine her, a little slip of a thing with a serious little face and twin braids, magicking her way through chores she resented. No wonder she's loose with the apprentices, now that she can be.

He lets it go. The kids are having a good time, at least, and no incidents yet. The older mages, the Harrowed ones, seem to be enjoying it too. Carver had caught some of them having a water-fight in the courtyard before, though they'd scrambled to a halt as soon as they spotted him watching. It had been frankly hilarious to see them, adults all, trying to look dignified when they were dripping all over the brickwork, but sad, too, that they thought he might punish them for it. But, they were Gallows mages, after all.

Not any more, though. Now they're Starkhaven mages, and good luck to them all. They can make a home here, for themselves. Carver's going to make sure that happens. He has faith, after all.

As if to spite him, someone starts screaming, high-pitched and pained, and Carver's in motion before he can even begin to curse. _Not now! Not when it's going so well, you fuckers!_

He finds them in one of the parlours, a gaggle of little robes gathered around the screaming person. The screaming cuts off sharply when he thunders in, all those tiny faces turning to him in terror. They're so _scared_ , and he stops at once, holding up his hands, because frightened apprentices are _not_ something he wants to deal with today.

"You're all right," he says automatically, fingers spread in a show of impotence. But they all know he has a Smite lurking under his skin, ready for the first sign of real trouble. He's aware of Keili at his shoulder, and glad of her. Maybe the apprentices will mind her, if they don't mind him. "What's wrong with Matthis?"

Matthis has his hands over his face, but he's stopped screaming, and all Carver can see are frightened eyes peeking out between his fingers. "She _scratched_ me!"

"Who scratched you?" Carver lumbers over, and finds Lily at the center of their knot. "Did you scratch him, Lily?"

Her pout is ferocious. "No!" she yells, hunching over herself and scowling.

His heart clenches a little. Lily's been so cool with him, not nearly as happy to see him again as he was to see her. He'd been so relieved, so glad of her, and she'd taken one look at him and turned away, frowning to herself and refusing to say anything to him at all. It hadn't quite broken his heart, and he supposed he deserved it, for leaving her behind. But she's here now and she's _safe_ , and he'll trade that for her love, if it's truly lost to him.

Still, it hurts. He'd thought they were friends.

Now, though … there's something wrong with her chest. She's huddled over it protectively, and it's lumpy, as if there's something tucked into the bodice of her robes. And then, as he watches, the lump in her robes shifts, and lets out a plaintive mew.

Oh. Right. "Show me," he says, putting on his best Knight Captain voice.

Lily makes an angry noise, but she opens her robes to show him the black-and-white kitten huddled against her tunic.

Well, then. Carver kneels down to get a better look at it. The thing is tiny, scrawny, black and white with wild yellow eyes and a dark smudge under its nose like a lopsided moustache.

"Hey, puss," he says, reaching out one gauntleted hand.

The kitten dodges him, and lashes out to score its claws across his face.

"Fuck!" 

He rocks back, shocked by the sudden flash of pain, and then there's a familiar scrape of drawing steel from behind him and one of the apprentices screams, and--

"No! Stand the fuck _down_!" Carver yells over his shoulder. He's not the only Templar here, after all. "It's just a bleeding _cat_." Though. He's the one bleeding, he discovers, when a gauntlet pressed to his face comes away bloody.

Lily looks horrified, clutching the kitten to her chest. "Ser Carver!"

The kitten, for its sins, simply huddles back into her arms, mewing angrily. But it doesn't scratch _her_ , Carver notes.

"Where did you find it?" he asks, because … well, it's a kitten, alone in a big old mansion, and he doesn't know much about cats but this one's just a baby, shouldn't be left alone in a place like this.

"Under the stairs," Lily says, watching him with wide dark eyes. "You won't hurt him?"

That she even has to ask is a crime, Carver thinks, and he shakes his head. "No-one's gunna hurt him." Even if his face _stings_.

"You must let him go, Lily," Keili says gently. "You can't keep him." Carver watches the way Lily's expression shutters, the defeated slump to her shoulders, and he _knows_ he shouldn't argue with Keili, not when these are her people in _her_ Circle, but still…

"Respectfully, First Enchanter," he says, trying his best to sound … well, respectful, at the very least, "I don't know that there's a rule about it." He doesn't want to undermine her authority, but really, what harm is there in letting the apprentices have a cat?

She eyes him thoughtfully. "There was, in the Gallows. But you're right, Knight Captain, there is no need for there be such a rule here."

Lily looks so … fuck, he can't look at her face, such intense unexpected _joy_. "Really? Can I _name_ him?"

"You may," Keili tells her, but she holds up a hand. "You must also _share_. He can't be _your_ cat, he must belong to _everyone_."

Lily looks stubborn for all of a moment, and then sly. "Can I name him Maf?" she asks, hitching the kitten up against her chest.

Keili sighs. "If you must."

"Thank-you, First Enchanter!" She's jubilant, and then she eyes Carver, sobering a little as she does. "Are you okay, Ser Carver?"

She means the scratches. They sting, but they're not that bad, and Carver opens his mouth to say he's fine, but Lily has shifted the kitten into the crook of her elbow and reached out, her stubby fingers splayed as magic gathers between them.

Carver can't help it; he flinches. Keili, though, reaches out fast as a snake to grip Lily by the wrist. " _No_ ," she says, and it resonates, her voice shuddering with magic. "Lily!" But then she subsides, still holding Lily's wrist, her voice gone soft and smooth again as if nothing had ever happened. "You must _ask_ first."

Lily bites her lip. "Can I Heal you, Ser Carver?"

He doesn't know what to say. Keili's no help, simply raising her eyebrows at him. He clears his throat. "Sure, Lily. Go ahead."

So she does, pressing a little cool minty magic into his skin, her face come over intent and focussed. It only takes a moment, and then she's shaking out her fingers, looking pleased with herself. "There!" The kitten mews again, and Lily hugs him close in her arms. "Can I feed him?"

"Go find something in the kitchens," Keili tells her, and then, "and remember to share!"

But she's gone, the gaggle of apprentices trailing after her, chattering in excitement.

Carver breathes out, pushing himself to his feet. Well. That could have gone worse. And Lily's … not exactly talking to him, but not _not_ talking to him, anymore.

He touches his cheek and finds it smooth beneath the dust of dried blood. The kitten hit the good side, and he can't help grinning over that. Feisty little bit, making sure its strikes count for something. 

"Maf?" he says, eyeing Keili sidelong. "What's wrong with that?"

"I'd wager that it's short for 'Maferath'," Keili sighs. Then she turns to him, examining his face with her eyes. "I apologise for the injury."

"Not your fault. Not like mages can control cats, anyway," though the thought of a little defender-of-mages kitten in the Starkhaven Circle is … hilarious, really. And wonderful. "Anyway, no harm done. I didn't know Lily was so good with Healing."

Keili nods, her expression gone severe. "Selwyn believes she may become a Spirit Healer, with training."

Ah. "Is there anyone to train her?"

"Besides Selwyn? Not yet. But," and she hesitates, tucking her hands into her sleeves, "I expect that, once word goes out that the Circle is being rebuilt in Starkhaven, we will have mages come to us for protection. Hopefully there will be one among them who can give her what training she needs."

And if not? Carver frowns, thinking of Anders, and Selwyn, and the only Circle he's ever known. "We'll take care of her, one way or another."

But the look Keili gives him is sharp. "I will not permit you to make her Tranquil simply for the crime of being talented at Healing."

Oh _fuck_. But of course she'd think he meant it that way. "I don't mean to make anyone Tranquil," he says, because it's true, and really, none of them know how. There will be other Templars, from other garrisons, who might come to them and _might_ know how, but for now it's not even an option. "This isn't the Gallows. This is _our_ Circle, and I won't be making any decisions without asking you first."

It's a big promise, but he means it, and since Tristram has given him leave to manage them it really is _Carver's_ call how to deal with any and all of the mage problems that crop up here. So. It's a promise he can _make_ , and _mean_ , and he'll keep it, he really will.

She doesn't smile. But she nods, stoic and solemn, and all over Keili. "I will hold you to that, Knight Captain."

"Good." It's a start. It _will_ be better here, he's certain of that. Now all they have to do is make sure of it.

* * *

Carver is spattered with flour, still putting the finishing touches on a tray of sweet buns, when the knock sounds at the door. His head snaps up, seeking Orana, and she gives him a wild look before wiping her hands on her apron. She's dressed so nicely tonight, neat and prim in fine green wool, her hair brushed up into a glossy knot and bright spots of colour on her eyes to match her dress. She nods, untying her apron.

"Go wash up," she tells him. "I will see to it, serrah."

As always, he does as she tells him, glad of that 'serrah' when he'd always been 'messere' to her before.

They're finding their way around one another, he thinks as he splashes water on his face in the washroom. She doesn't seem to resent him being there, in her house -- because it's hers as much as it is Fenris', and he doesn't want to upset her with his intrusions. But she doesn't seem to find them _too_ intrusive, and tonight she'd finally taken him at his word when he asked if he could help, recruiting him to knead dough and roll it out and decorate it for tonight's pudding.

He hears Tully shout a bright welcome, and Tristram's loud reply, and he swipes a towel over his face, keen to relieve Orana of the onerous duty of greeting their guests. When he goes out he finds she has shown them into the parlour, and is clutching a covered dish to her chest that is clearly a gift from the MacFarris house.

She curtsies when she sees him. "Please, if you will, Serrah?" And she leaves him there, scurrying out with the dish. Tully, though, stays to stare at their guests with wide amber eyes, hopping from foot to foot in his excitement.

Carver clears his throat. "You're early," he says, and Tristram chuckles at him, jiggling baby Mino against his chest, his other hand smoothing over Alexan's cloud of curls.

"We're _on time_ , Butcher. It's your man who's late," he says.

Xavia sighs, sinking into an armchair and running a hand over the swell of her belly. "Don't tease him, you rogue. It's a lovely place you have here," she says to Carver. "Tell your man I said so. Now, why are you shy?" She's turned to Alexan, who is clinging to her father's leg and eyeing Tully very warily. "Go on, introduce yourself."

Alexan glowers at Tully, but then she steps forward and offers her hand. "Alexan MacTristram," she says, and she's sharp about it but Tully doesn't seem to care, eyeing her hand as if it's the most interesting thing he's seen all day.

"Catullus Orana," he says, and then he grabs her hand. "Salve!" He doesn't let go, instead he tugs her toward the door. "Ser Carver made a swing! Come see!"

And, wonder of wonders, she goes with him. Carver watches them run off with a sense of foreboding -- there's a few years between them and they're nothing alike. He doesn't know how to, well, _anything_ when it comes to children, but if they're happy … he hopes they'll get along, anyway.

Tristram thrusts a bottle at him. "Here! A gift for you and your man. And a nice place you have, to be sure." 

He props his hands on his hips, looking about himself, and Carver feels deeply self-conscious on Fenris' behalf, because … he really doesn't want Tristram to make fun of him about the house right now. Not that there's anything to make fun of. It's a _nice_ house. Better than Carver could ever have expected for himself, but still, he's self-conscious about it all.

Another miracle; Tristram doesn't mock him, simply nods, smirking at Carver. "Should I open that for you, now?"

Carver scowls at him. "I can open it," he says, and then he checks himself, remembering. "Fenris said … we should start with this one." It's already open -- 'breathing' Fenris called it, but Carver doesn't understand what that means. Still, he pours Fenris' wine into cups, watering Xavia's heavily according to her instructions. She's so _fat_ she can hardly get up, but when she sighs an apology at him he tells her, "I'll fetch and carry for you, it's fine."

"You're a good man, Carver Hawke," she says, and then she arches an eyebrow at him. "Would that I had one of you at home, just now."

Tristram growls, narrowing his eyes. "Don't you flirt with him, woman. He's practically married."

"Oh? And am I not myself 'practically' married?" She tilts her chin, prim as a duchess. "I think I'll flirt however I _like_."

Before Tristram can blow up into mock jealousy, Carver clears his throat. "Um. Thanks for coming. I … I know it's not, you know." And he takes a sip of wine to cover his awkwardness.

Tristram snorts, leaning up against the wall beside the mantelpiece. "Not what, little brother? Not your own house? Now that you're living like a _kept man_ , with a family for you all ready-made?"

"Trish," Xavia hisses, one hand splayed on the broad expanse of her belly. "Don't tease the lad for making _good_ for himself. You've a fine house, Carver," she says, favouring him with a smile. "And a fine man, besides. You should be proud of yourself. Never mind my sorry husband."

"He doesnae mind," Tristram protests, and he rolls his eyes, catching Carver with the curve of it. "Ach, woman. Dinnae interfere in the business of _men_."

"Oh, and now you're going to tell me how to talk to my own very good friends, is that it?" She shakes her head, and then she offers Carver a sly wink. "Carver, lad. Tell my husband to mind his own business."

So they're going to be like _this_ all night.

Their bickering is pleasant, actually, warming him up with how _comfortable_ it sounds, two people who love each other dearly but will never _ever_ back down from a chance to tease or mock something they think small enough to be mocked with impunity. They go back and forth and Carver listens, laughing when it's necessary, and … he really does love them. Fuck, he does, and it's something that's true of so many people now that he feels unworthy of it. How dare he? But, they're his, his friends, and he can't help it. It is a thing that is, and he's so fucking glad that he goes along when Xavia drags him into a joke about sausages at Tristram's expense.

Carver's finished his wine, wondering if he should fill everyone's cups when he hears the front door open and -- oh! He sets down his empty cup and fills two more, turning to the parlour doorway just in time for Fenris to look in.

"Here," Carver says, handing him one, and the breadth of his smile is warm and welcome, and Carver just stops, staring at him, uncaring how many people can see.

Fenris' guest tips back his hood. "Good evening, to you all."

Carver hands him the other cup. "Your Highness," he says, and Sebastian makes _such_ a face.

"Please, don't. Fenris promised me a night in which I could forget myself," he says, lifting the cup. "Forgive me for our lateness. I was, sadly, detained."

"Do not apologise," Fenris insists, and he's so _defensive_. Carver thinks it's cute. "Neither Carver nor I will fault you for it."

And the rest can go hang, is what he means. Carver grins, though he knows it a slight to Xavia, if an unintentional one. "Fenris." Fenris turns to him, sharp as a hawk, and Carver has to stop to catch his breath. "You know my Knight Commander. This is his wife, Xavia."

Xavia leans forward, offering a hand over her belly. "Xavia MacFarris. Forgive me for being …" and she makes a fluid gesture that takes in the fullness of her belly and her whole self.

"There is no need," Fenris tells her, touching her hand. "Please, be welcome. And you, Knight Commander. Be welcome."

Sebastian holds out his arms. "Is that Mino? Let me see him. Ach, you great big _boy_ " Sebastian coos, as Tristram hands up his son. "Growing fast, I see. Cannae you walk yet, lad?"

"He's doing his damnedest," Tristram says, puffing up in his pride. "Gets into everything, the little beast."

Fenris touches Carver's arm. "All is well?" he murmurs, bright eyes catching Carver's.

"All good. Tully's in the yard with Alexan," he adds, which would be fine except that's the moment someone starts yelling in the yard.

Fenris is out like a shot, and Tristram rolls his eyes before going after him. Xavia sighs. "Get on with you, then," she says, sounding bored of it already.

So Carver goes out, to find Alexan clutching her eye and Tully bleeding profusely from the nose.

"But he _started_ it!" Alexan whines, while Tully babbles hysterically in Tevene, clutching Fenris' leg like a lifeline.

Carver never does find out what happened, but he watches Tristram force Alexan to apologise, and Fenris force Tully to accept it -- "In _Common_ ," he insists -- and then apologise likewise.

When they're done, all the tears wiped away, Sebastian kneels down to chat to them both with Mino sitting fat and owlish on his hip, apparently intent on their babble. He seems content enough with the children, so Carver follows the others back inside, though...

"Should we leave them with him?" Carver asks.

Tristram snorts. "Valery's fine," he says fondly.

Fenris does not seem so certain, but all he does when Carver raises his eyebrows is shrug, and open another bottle of wine.

Dinner goes well, in the end. Everyone compliments Orana's cooking, and Xavia seems pleased not to be hosting for a change. Tristram and Fenris argue the merits of a two-hander over the sword-and-board, but it's companionable, and Fenris seems content enough for Carver to relax, watching them bicker. Sebastian engages Orana in a conversation about salt, which Xavia weighs in upon with such fervour that Carver stops to listen a bit -- salt turns into discussion of the Chantry school and the intricacies thereof. Carver listens a bit and then is drawn back into logistics and equipment and things he notes to take up with their quartermaster. He doesn't want them caught out, after all, and these things are important, if boring. Eventually, that turns into a seemingly endless series of puns, and Carver makes a few of his own, pleased when Fenris rolls his eyes because isn't that the point of a good pun?

Sebastian tells stories to the children. Alexan and Tully laugh at him and join in, making wild suggestions, and he accommodates them in a way that Carver had never expected. Alexan tells a joke of her own, and it isn't particularly good, but good enough for someone so small, so Carver laughs and she smiles at him, but then she sneaks all her greens onto his plate. He can't even be mad, just eats them, casting her long-suffering looks he doesn't mean while she giggles.

Tully starts to teach her Tevene. "Salve!" she says to Carver, and then, "Vale, vale!" and both of them dissolve into giggling.

Bewildered, Carver glances at Fenris, only to find him covering his face with one hand, shoulders shuddering with suppressed laughter. Maybe it was funny, then, or maybe Fenris is just tipsy. Carver has no idea.

The night winds out late. Eventually Tristram declares it time to put his children to bed. Mino's already asleep, and Alexan's tired enough to make a fuss, but calms down when her father promises she can visit again.

"She's a lonely little thing," he tells Carver on the doorstep. "Don't be surprised if she comes visiting all by herself."

"I'll let you know, if she does."

Tristram hugs him, whispering, "You've done good, Butcher," in his ear. "Try not to fuck it up."

Carver won't. He's determined not to.

Fenris and Sebastian are talking softly by the fire. Carver rubs his hands over Fenris' shoulders and goes out to see if Orana needs a hand in the kitchen. Which is how he ends up helping her with the dishes, but he doesn't mind. Tully's been put to bed, a droopy mess, and it's just them, scrubbing dishes and pots together.

"Anything else?" he asks, shaking suds off his hands.

She shakes her head. "Thankyou, serrah. You have done more than enough."

But then she picks up the tea tin and he knows what that means.

"Shall I fill the kettle?"

Her mouth twists into something sweet, like her eyes. "If you don't mind."

He takes it to the pump, glad to do this for her, glad he can do anything for her at all, really. When he takes it back in and sets it on the hob she has sat herself down at the kitchen table, hands folded in her lap, and she casts a look at him that can only be grateful.

"Thankyou, Ser Carver." 

She hesitates, watching him, and he starts pulling out cups and the teapot, setting it all out neat as he can. Surely they don't need biscuits now, full of dinner and sweet rolls as they are.

Eventually, she leans forward, her hands wound into a knot on the kitchen worktable. "Forgive me, serrah. I would not ask for myself, but …"

He glances up, catching the crease of her brow. "You can ask me anything, Orana. I hope you know that."

She nods, hands working one against the other, but she does not meet his eye. "I remember how it was before. When you… when you were much in our house. Ah, I mean to say, when you came to see Serrah Fenris."

Of course she does. He thinks back on it, remembering her kindnesses, the little things she would do for him, but also how she would shy away whenever he looked at her. Afraid of him. Though he'd tried not to be frightening. Now she is no longer afraid of him, and it's so good, so much _better_.

But what he says is, "Yeah. Me too."

"Forgive me, but I remember also how it was when you left us. And that it was not of your choosing."

He looks up, catches her watching him with wide, tilted eyes. There's no accusation there, no reproof. It is a thing that was. It is simply a truth. It shouldn't hurt to hear it.

"I wouldn't have, if I could have stayed instead."

"I believe that," she says, still watching him, so bold now it is like looking at a different Orana, one who has nothing to fear of him ever again. Except. "Serrah Fenris has changed. And yet, he is the same man. I … I hope he has not changed too much, nor too little, for you to stay with us now."

Is she … asking him to stay? "I don't intend to go anywhere, Orana." _I never did._ "If Fenris will let me … of course I'll stay."

She nods, looking down at her hands. "Even though…"

"Even though?"

And now she looks up again, something fierce in her face that he would never have expected. "There is Tully."

Carver takes a breath, takes the kettle off the hob, fills the teapot and sets the kettle down again. "He's a good boy," he says, meaning it and hoping it's enough. "You must be proud of him. I would be, if he was mine."

Little nuisance that he is, and at the same time … he's sweet, and the way that Fenris dotes on and indulges him is sweet, too sweet for words, clutching something tight in Carver's chest. This is what Fenris accused Carver of wanting, a child of his own, and yet Tully is not his, is not Carver's, is Orana's son. Still, it's the same, for Fenris. A little boy who loves him. Someone he can love back, without the fear of it thrown in his face.

(For now. Carver remembers things he'd said to his own father in anger, things Garrett had said to his mother, things Bethany had muttered into the clench of her fists. But, for now, it can be what it is.)

"I am. And I would be sad if you left again, Ser Carver," she says, leaning forward. "For Serrah Fenris, and for Tully and myself."

"It's not up to me," Carver tells her, because … well, they've said that this time it's for keeps, that Fenris won't do what he did last time, that Carver won't let him. But Carver knows that if Fenris tells him to _go_ then he'll go. He can't force something if it's not meant to be. He's learned that lesson.

"Then I will do what I can to make certain it will not come to pass," Orana says, pouring the tea, and Carver doesn't know what she means but she sounds so _satisfied_ that he doesn't question it, simply carries the tray into the parlour.

They go in together, sit and talk and listen. Orana excuses herself once her cup is empty, and then Carver, feeling superfluous to the discussion at hand (they are so _deep_ in it that he doesn't really know if they notice) takes himself up to bed, leaving the other two talking by the low-burning fire. There's water for washing, so he strips down, washes up, climbs into the bed and closes his eyes.

A good evening. Far better than he'd dreaded, and still better than he'd hoped. Fenris seemed pleased with it all, if his sidelong smiles were anything to go by.

Is he happy? He seems happy. Tomorrow could bring anything but for tonight Carver thinks Fenris is as happy as he's ever been, and that sets a sort of satisfaction thrumming in his chest. If Fenris is happy that's all that matters, right?

Because if Fenris is happy, really happy, then he is too. And he is, he is, he can barely stand it, even if Fenris is lingering downstairs with Sebastian bloody Vael instead of following him up to their wide, comfortable bed, with its fresh-laundered sheets and ridiculous abundance of pillows.

He tosses some pillows to the floor and lies amongst the rest, touching himself lazily, thinking of Fenris' smile, of his eyes, of the taut glory of his body. _Come up,_ he thinks, willing Fenris to hear him. _Come on, you fucker, stop_ dallying _down there and come the fuck up._

As if by magic, he catches the creak of a floorboard, the shifting weight of footfalls on the stairs, and then the door opens and there he is.

Fenris stops in the doorway, eyeing Carver spread out beneath the sheets, and there, that smile, promising so much.

Fenris closes the door.

"Are you well?" he asks, as he removes his shirt, his trousers, his smalls, rubbing a hand over his belly absently, as if he doesn't know exactly what effect he has on Carver when he does so. Naked, he's lovely, lean and strong and _lithe_ , and Carver forgets the question, only remembers it when Fenris turns a questioning look on him. "Mmm?"

"I'm good," Carver tells him, propping himself up on the mattress, well aware of the tenting of the sheet over his hips. Fenris can see, Fenris knows. The only question is what Fenris is going to do about it. "You?"

"Very well," Fenris tells him, going to the washstand to run a cloth over his face.

Carver clears his throat, watching the water run over Fenris' throat to skitter down his chest. "Sebastian gone, then?"

"Safely in the hands of his guards." He catches Carver's confusion and clarifies shortly. "I had them wait on him in the street."

"All evening? Rough on them, the poor bastards," Carver says, remember how he'd hated guard duty in the Gallows.

"Orana took cakes and wine out to them," Fenris confesses, wiping under his arms and down below, front and back. He dries himself with a towel before sitting on the end of the bed to wash his feet, and Carver watches the knot and flex of muscle beneath his skin, the breath in his chest thickening because … this. This is all he's ever wanted, just this quiet, intimate thing. Fenris washing his feet at the end of a long day, and Carver waiting for him in bed. 

What a small thing to want. How ridiculous, the things Longing had offered him, all that glory and so on, when if he'd only--

But he doesn't want to dwell on it now, when Fenris is putting the cloth and the towel aside to douse all but one of the candles, every movement graceful and deliberate and certain.

When he turns to Carver his eyes are shadowed, but his smile is broad enough that Carver has to draw breath to meet it.

"Are you tired?" Fenris asks.

Carver tries very hard not to grin, and fails completely. "I mean … yeah, but not _very_."

"Orana told me you assisted her in the kitchen today," Fenris says, kneeling up on the edge of the bed, hands coming up to peel back the sheet. Carver holds still, letting Fenris reveal him, his heart thudding with every inch of his bared skin. "The sweet rolls were delicious."

"I mean, I just _helped_ ," Carver confesses, shivering under the weight of Fenris' gaze. Maker, how does he make something so simple feel so _significant_? "Orana did all the important bits."

"But you laboured for her. Is that not beneath a Captain of the Order of Knights Templar?"

The sheet pulls free. Carver licks his lips. "Not a lot that's _beneath_ me, Fenris," he says, blood pounding in his ears because Fenris looks so--

"Oh?" He runs his nails down Carver's instep, watching the path of his fingers, and Carver jerks away from it but then, then he tries to hold still even though … "Then you are willing to take _instruction_ , is that it?"

Maker's mercy, Carver is suddenly, painfully willing. "If you're gunna give it, I'll take whatever you've _got_."

Fenris smiles, trailing his fingers up Carver's calf to dig sharp points into the soft parts of Carver's thigh. It hurts, but it's not _bad_ , and the sharpness of it is is immediately offset by the soft brush of Fenris' thumb.

"In that case," Fenris says, voice gone low, lower than usual, into a place that sends shivers down Carver's spine because of what it _promises_ , "put your hands above your head and grip the headboard."

Carver hesitates only for a moment. Then he has the wood hard in his palms, fingers curling against it. "Okay," he says, and Fenris nods.

"Good. Do not let go," Fenris tells him, shifting on his knees to bow over Carver's body, eyes sharp as knives. "If you do, then I will stop." 

It's a threat and a promise, and Carver gets it. He can let go, if he wants to stop. If not …

"I won't," he says, and Fenris chuckles, ducking his head to press his mouth to Carver's skin.

He's ruthless, ruthlessly slow and ruthlessly gentle at first, teasing with his lips and his tongue and his terrible, clever fingers, and Carver bites down on the noises that try to escape from his mouth, acutely aware that they aren't alone in this house. But Fenris, predictably, orders him not to, orders him to give voice to every little sound his throat chokes out, and soon enough he's stopped caring, too caught up in the pleasure of Fenris tending him, torturing him, making free with his flesh in the way only Fenris ever really has. Like Carver is _his_ , like he can do whatever he wants and Carver will allow it, revel in it, beg for it, and he does, pleading with Fenris to do _more_ , take _more_ , just _have_ of him.

But Fenris is stubborn, and the gentle teasing turns sharp, like his nails, like his teeth as they score Carver's skin, dragging him up into something new, something dangerous and seductive that pulls Carver into it like a Force spell, inexorable. Carver gasps and hisses and pleads, and Fenris ignores him, working him over and over and over, and it's too much, not enough, Carver can't bear it, he can't.

"Please," he begs, sweat slicking his skin as Fenris _tortures_ him. "Please, please, Fenris, ah! _Please_ , I can't--"

"I think you can," Fenris says, digging his claws into Carver's flesh as he leans down to lick again at Carver's cock, and Carver bucks, over-sensitive and helpless, holding on to the headboard like it's the last solid thing in the world.

Fenris bites him, high up on his thigh, and Carver wails, his arms aching with the effort of holding on. "I can't! Fenris!"

Fenris takes pity on him, and takes him instead. Fuck, Maker, _fuck_ , how he _does_ , does not ease into it but just slicks himself up and slides _home_ , and the sudden overwhelming fullness makes Carver grit his teeth, breathing hard through them because _yes_ , finally, yes, please, oh Maker …

That's it, he can't control himself, not when Fenris _drives_ him like this, and Fenris does, thrusting into him with the certainty of an earthshake, and Carver curls up, locking his legs around Fenris' hips and rocking up to meet him. This, this, this, please, oh please, can he have this? Just this, this, forever. 

Fenris snarls, tipping Carver's hips up, gripping them in his hands as he rolls down, and Carver's 'forever' becomes 'any fucking second' because it's too good, too much, and he breaks, sobbing as he shakes and shakes and _shakes_ , drawn down under the weight of it all as he spills over.

Maker, it's like drowning. The wash of it blanks his vision, and then he's blinking up into the glow of Fenris' markings as he shudders, hips stuttering to a halt to bury himself in Carver's flesh.

Fuck. Carver can't move, too wrung out, too spent, and Fenris is bent over him, heaving with the drag of his breath, and suddenly Carver wants his mouth more than anything else in the world.

He unlatches his hands from the headboard; his arms _ache_ so, too taut for too long, but still he wraps them around Fenris' ribcage, palms flat on Fenris' skin, pulling him down to find his mouth and drown in it.

Fenris plasters himself against Carver's body, kissing him wet and messy, and Carver can't speak, can only moan into Fenris' mouth. Ah. Ah, it's so _good_. How did he live without this all these years?

 _I love you,_ he thinks, and then he opens his mouth and it just-- "I love you," he says, and Maker protect him, if Fenris doesn't say it back, then …

But.

Fenris makes a rough sound, catching Carver's lip in his teeth and biting down hard. " _You_ ," he growls, "You are _mine_."

It's good enough.

They tangle together, kissing and licking and biting at one another, until they run down and Fenris collapses in a sweaty mess on Carver's chest. Carver strokes his back, pressing kisses into his hair as Fenris mouths at his throat.

It's good. Carver lets his mind go blank, blissfully empty, content to lie here in the aftermath of it all.

Fenris kisses his jaw, his cheek, his mouth again, though Carver is too weak to kiss him back. Eventually he pulls away, to fetch them something to clean up with, and still Carver can barely move, can hardly protest when Fenris wipes him clean. He bears the indignity of it, eyes closed, wrecked on the shore of it all, and then Fenris climbs into bed, blowing out the candle and tugging up the covers to wind about Carver in a sweaty sprawl of limbs.

Carver breathes in, out, in again, eyes closed against the dark, all his muscles gone to nothing. This is good. And he does love Fenris, so much it's like filling up with warm honey. It doesn't matter if Fenris doesn't say it back. He's pretty sure he knows, anyway. And Fenris said he was _his_ , right? Surely that's enough.

"Are you well?" Fenris asks, soft against his shoulder, and Carver rumbles out a 'yes', or something like enough to one that Fenris hugs him up, pressing his nose into Carver's neck and breathing warm and damp against his skin.

This is it. This is everything he's ever wanted.

He sinks into sleep, and everything is perfect.

* * *

Too perfect. It can't, no, this can't be--

* * *

Carver jerks up, hands reaching out to grip something that isn't there, and then, then he's clutching at nothing, a shadow in the dark, and he's slick with cold sweat, his heart racing.

No. No, it was just a dream. Nothing, except--

Except he doesn't know where he is.

In a bed, in a warm, safe place. Not that cell, no, not _that_. Though, every time he wakes he _thinks_...

"Carver?"

Oh. _Oh_. Fenris, sitting up and reaching for his shoulder, his hand warm and real and _real_ , Maker, he's completely … real. Carver grabs at him, and remembers himself too late. He tries to let go, but Fenris grabs at him just as hard, his fingers curling into Carver's flesh and _holding on_ , too tight and too hard. 

" _Carver_. Are you well?"

Carver shakes his head, unable to speak. It was so real. _This_ is so real. How can he tell the difference? Is he still in that cell, dreaming of a better life he can never have?

Fenris' hands bear down on him, the nails of his fingers digging in. "Carver!"

"I'm okay!" He isn't. He is. He really … he doesn't know, but he sweeps an arm about Fenris' shoulders and drags him in, sinking his face into the hollow of Fenris' neck. Fenris doesn't protest, simply pulls Carver against him, wrapping him up in strong arms, his fingers splayed protectively against Carver's back. "I'm … I think I ..." _I don't know._

"What's wrong?"

Nothing. Everything. Is this real? It's too good -- Fenris here and, and, the mages safe, the Starkhaven Circle good, Tristram making him Knight Captain (of all things), Sebastian a _prince_ again… Fenris, and his house, and Orana and Tully and _wanting Carver here with him_.

It can't be real. It _can't_. He can't possibly have this.

But he can smell the chamomile rising from Fenris' hair, can feel the skin taut over muscle beneath his hands, can hear the soft sounds of early-morning Starkhaven through the shutters.

And Fenris, pressing his mouth to Carver's cheek. "Please."

"Tell me this is real," Carver says, chokes it out, afraid of what might happen if he's wrong. Now, if it were the demon, then everything would _break_. He'd lose _all of it_ , and he can't bear it, can't do this, can't keep on--

Fenris bites him, just a small bite on the curve of his throat, sharp enough to make him gasp but not hard enough to break the skin. "This is _real_ ," Fenris growls, clutching him close, and Carver clutches back at him, holding on because … yes, this is real. He feels foolish for doubting it, and yet… "You are _real_ ," Fenris growls against his throat. "I will _not_ let you be anything else."

Okay. _Okay_. Okay, that's good. That's …

Carver sighs, hiding his eyes in Fenris' shoulder. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I don't--"

"I will always tell you," Fenris says, his mouth tickling the curve of Carver's ear, "if this is real. Do not doubt me. I _will_ be here. I will never let you falter."

It's too much, and exactly enough. Carver kisses Fenris' skin, feeling too many things to communicate any of them.

"I do love you," Fenris whispers, and it's too much, Carver can't bear it, and he wraps himself around Fenris like a blanket and won't let go.

Not of this. Not _ever_.

But eventually Fenris shifts against him, and Carver pulls him into his lap, wrapping him up safe (which is ridiculous, given everything) and kisses his hair, kisses his cheek, kisses the mouth Fenris tips up to him to be kissed.

They lie down, tight-coiled and together, and Carver breathes in deep, breathes out, and says, "This is _real_."

"Yes," Fenris tells him. And then, "I will not allow anything less."

"Me neither. Let's keep it that way." 

Fenris tilts his head to kiss the underside of Carver's jaw. "Yes, with all my heart."

Which is, really, the best anyone can do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the End, really, but for the epilogue. 
> 
> I'll get back to you all then but for right now? I'm a bit emotional about the end of this. I have carried this creature for a whole bunch of years and I'm deeply emotional about putting it down. You have all been so WONDERFUL and I am very grateful for all of your marvellous encouragement. You are the best! I have the best readers, the best commenters, the BEST, for serious. I do not deserve you wonderful people, not a bit. You've been so patient and so kind. Thank-you so much, I could not have sustained the energy to do this without you.
> 
> As always, please hit me up on tumblr (tanukiham) or on gmail (tanukiham at etcetera) if you want to yell at me about anything. <3 <3 <3


	57. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this there is a short discussion of pregnancy in which no-one acknowledges the existence of trans people. Just a heads up.

The first farm turns them away. The second sets the dogs on them. Anders says they're lucky the dogs were just dogs and not Mabari and Merrill agrees with him, because Mabari are as much people as Halla are and she would have felt awful about smacking them with a little ice to send them running.

The third lets them stay in the barn, or rather the farmer does. She's old, stubborn and wiry, and it's clear from the deterioration of her farm that she needs a strong pair of shoulders about the place, which she seems to think Anders will provide in exchange for a place to sleep and something to eat. Anders finds this hilarious, snickering into his hand whenever her back is turned, and casting amused looks Merrill's way the rest of the time.

The farmer, Evangeline, throws in a couple of moth-eaten blankets and they make a nest for themselves in the straw, hunkering down to eat their cold potatoes and boiled eggs up in the loft above the inevitable stink of cattle.

When he's done, Anders flops on his back, sighing heavily. "Well, that's certainly better than the last time I ran away from the Circle."

"No eggs?" Merrill asks, thinking that it really was very kind of Evangeline to give them anything at all, however she frowned over it.

"Not a morsel. I slept in a ditch," he tells her, propping himself up on one arm. Merrill is on the point of asking him why he did not instead make a bower in the undergrowth when he adds, "And, of course, the company this time is _much_ better."

He reaches for her knee, squeezing it gently, and the contact makes her thrill inside. He's so _tactile_ , likes to touch her any chance he gets, and smiles at her so often now that it makes her giddy. Such a human smile, and just for her, and she doesn't know how to thank him for it.

She likes this Anders. _This_ one, the one she met in the Fade, the one who kissed her once (twice!) and maybe, if she's lucky, will kiss her again.

But. There is something she has to say.

"You could have stayed at the first farm, if not for me."

He blinks, and sits up. "I couldn't have."

"You know they only turned you away because they didn't trust an elf not to steal from them."

"And that's why I _couldn't_." His brow draws down over his great long nose, making wrinkles around his eyes. "Merrill … I won't abandon you."

"Maybe you should," she says, hating it, but it needs to be said. It would be easier for him if he did. She doesn't want to be a burden, after all.

But he's caught her hand in his, his fingers twining through hers, and he says, "No. Never."

It's sweet, but also-- "You shouldn't make promises. Who knows what will happen?"

"Is this your way of telling me to leave you alone?" he asks, stroking over the ball of her thumb. "I will, if you say it. But you have to say it, otherwise I'm not going anywhere without you."

He says it so simply, as though it is simply a truth. And then he tilts his head, regarding her with this wide open _human_ look that goes to her bones.

"You know, if all you want of me is my friendship, then I can give you that. Although…"

He looks so reluctant. Merrill wets her lip, frightened, though she cannot admit to herself why. "Although?"

"I've been wanting to kiss you, very badly, all day." He smiles, and it's weak and wary, as if he too is frightened of this.

"Must you do it badly?" she asks, shifting on her knees, yearning toward him though she knows it is reckless. But her chest is tight and awful, and she _wants_ , so much. "Can't you try harder to do it better?"

It makes him laugh, but before she can feel too affronted he is tugging her in, wrapping an arm around her and pressing his face to her neck, shuddering with all this unexpected laughter. "I _will_ try my best. Oh, Merrill, you lovely, _lovely_ \--"

" _Please_ ," she begs, hands fluttering over his shoulders. "Oh, please do it. I've been waiting so long."

Which is when he kisses her.

Creators, it isn't bad at all. It's _wonderful_ , and she leans into him, lets him in, presses her tongue to his tongue, her hands to his chest. He cups her jaw in his palms and gives himself up, his magic curling into her like smoke, and it draws her own up from her core, the two coiling together into something greater than themselves.

She feels him along the bond, and that is _joy_ , bright and beautiful and all for her. How warm it is, how _hopeful_. It calls to her and she answers it, coming up on her knees to push against him, and then they tumble into the straw in a magnificent mess.

"Oof!" He pulls away, blinking up at her, and she can't help giggling. 

"A-anders!" It's delightful, how he smiles, his wide mouth curling into something sweet, something she wants more of right _now_. She bows over him to taste that smile, and his hands are in her hair, and he isn't frightened anymore. Neither is she. Not of him, or this, or whatever comes next. He's warm and huge and _human_ , and it's strange to feel him against her, every long human limb opening up to let her in. The bond swells with warmth, tugging her down and she wills him to feel how much she wants him, how good it is to be with him, finally, in the flesh.

He groans, turning his face against her cheek and pressing his mouth to her skin. "Merrill," he murmurs. "And here I thought you'd be shy."

"Why should I be shy? What should I be shy about?" She tries to sit up but he catches and holds her fast, licking his lip and blinking.

"Nothing at all. People are, though, when they haven't… well. You know what I mean."

It takes a moment for her thoughts to steady enough to imagine what he might mean. "Haven't had a good fucking?" she asks. He snorts, and it ought to be an ugly sound but somehow it isn't. "What? You're _laughing_ at me."

"No, no." He kisses her again, presses kisses along her jaw and up to brush his lips against her temple. "Heavens no. I will _never_ laugh at you."

"Oh, I hope you will!" She can't help frowning, and he kisses the place between her eyes where the furrows form. "I'm quite funny, sometimes. I _want_ you to laugh when I'm funny."

"Then I will." He lays back, and his smile goes all the way to his eyes, crinkling them up delightfully. He looks so _happy_. She can feel how happy he is through the bond, and then she checks herself, suddenly ashamed. He must feel it; he rubs her arm through her sleeve. "What's wrong?"

"I never said," she tells him, ashamed of herself and trying to hide it, "how sorry I was for binding you." He frowns and she goes on quickly, not wanting this to last any longer than it has to. "I didn't mean to! And after everything I said to, to Hawke, oh… I feel like such a hypocrite."

"Would it help if I told you I don't mind?" He smiles into her frown, stroking her shoulder and settling beneath her so that she is between his thighs, with his chest to lean on. "Or that I think it saved my life, back in the Gallows?"

"Maybe? What do you mean?"

"That was how I found my way back to you," he says, and it can't be true, but he explains it so simply. There he was, still trapped in the Fade, and there _she_ was, an anchor to a cord strung out between them. She tugged and he followed, and here they are now, together. "Just how I would have wanted."

"You had no choice," she tells him. "It doesn't matter if it was good, in the end. I never asked."

"You said you didn't mean to. If that's true, then I don't see how you can be blamed for it." A shadow comes over him then, casting his sharp features in hard lines. "Hawke never meant to. I never blamed _him_."

Merrill knows she has faults, some of them too terrible to dwell upon for long, but perhaps the most innocent of them is her inability to keep her mouth shut when she ought to. She feels she ought to now, but she needs to know, and the words come out of her so easily. "Do you miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"The connection to Hawke."

He stares at her, eyes wide and warm as honey. "What do you mean 'miss it'?"

"I don't know. I don't … can we please not talk about it now? I liked kissing you and we've stopped and it's so nice, I don't know why we don't keep doing it."

His smile is perfect, and when he kisses her again it's perfect, and his hands on her are gentle and firm and _perfect_.

He helps her out of her tunic; she helps him out of his shirt and his trousers and his underthings, and then she stops, staring. "Oh!"

He lays out under her, naked and lovely beneath the magelight stuck up against the loft wall. It casts him in silver, all down the length of him, glinting in the hair dusted over his torso all the way to his thighs. He's so _hairy_ , so _human_ , and the smile he offers her isn't shy exactly just--

"Are you going to stare at me?"

"Shouldn't I? I like looking at you." She lays a hand on his belly, feeling the gaunt softness of it. He's too thin, for a human. He needs feeding up.

"I know I'm not young," he sighs, glancing away, but he does nothing to hide himself. "I'm not exactly a catch."

"I'm not hunting you," she says, trailing her hand down to touch him, where his cock lies thick in a nest of golden hair. "I don't see what age has to do with it."

"I was handsome, once." He sounds wistful. "I don't want to brag, but I … well, there's no use in crying over it."

Merrill opens her mouth to tell him it doesn't matter about _handsome_ , she doesn't care about that, but then she checks herself. She doesn't understand him, not completely, but she feels the regret blooming in the bond and knows this is about his feelings, not hers. "I think you're _very_ handsome," she says, stroking him carefully. His cock jumps up to meet her, thick and full and _alive_ , and she thinks, _If we'd had a chance to bathe today I'd put him in my mouth, now._

But they haven't and she doesn't, instead she fumbles with her leggings and climbs on top of him to kiss him, naked against his skin.

He wraps around her at once, rolling her onto her back, and kisses her until her head is empty of everything except the feel of him, and the tentative joy spilling through him now. Yes. This. She wants it. Even if--

"I thought you'd be bigger," she says carelessly, between kisses. "Humans are, aren't they? But you're _not_ , you're neat and pretty and I--"

"Merrill!" He looks caught between amusement and affront, but it spills over into what she thinks might be, from him, a giggle. "Really, it's not the best idea to tell a man he's _small_ if you want him to," but the giggle overtakes him and then he's giggling into her neck.

"Not small! Just … compact."

"Please," he says, looking up at her, his mouth curved into a smile. " _Merrill_."

"But _I'm_ small," she argues, pressing her breasts against his chest. "I wouldn't want you to be bigger. It would _hurt_."

"I wouldn't hurt you," Anders tells her, kissing her mouth very softly. "And I don't have to … shit, we don't have to do this. I don't, I mean," and he frowns, "we don't have to do anything that might hurt. Or make a baby."

It's such a silly thing to say. As though she doesn't know how to protect herself from _babies_. He should _know_ , he's a _Healer_ , and she has just as much magic as he does. But he looks so earnest about it so she nods. "All right. I was hoping, though."

His eyes widen. "For a baby?"

"No! For you to … A-anders! Don't you _want_ to?"

"All I want," he says quietly, and suddenly she can feel him, intent on her in a way that is very, very nice, "is to do whatever you want me to. I want it to be good, whatever 'it' is."

It's sweet, but completely unnecessary. "Well, I want a good fucking." He splutters, shaking his head, but it's not a 'no'. "You said! It's your fault if that's dirty, I don't even--"

"Whatever you want," he says, and this time, when he kisses her, _this_ time…

She isn't sure when they go from kissing to fucking, she doesn't know where the boundaries are, but he listens when she tells him things, when she wants things, and he doesn't laugh at her. He goes slow when she wants slow, and fast when she wants fast, and lighter, harder, a little to the left, yes, _yes_ , and then he's shuddering in her arms, red-faced and desperate.

"Merrill," he pants, "for the love of Andraste's _sweet_ knickers, I can't, you have to--"

It's really rather sweet.

Afterwards, she curls up under his arm, sated and satisfied, and he kisses her hair, and certainly she aches a little below. It's been a long time since she ached like this, years and _years_ , but it was never like _this_ and now she's had it she wonders how she can ever go without it again. Or without Anders, murmuring soft words into her hair.

They pull all their clothes over them like extra blankets, and it's lovely and warm in their straw nest, or at least it is until she wakes, cold shivering her skin because Anders has sat up. She can't see him in the dark but she can feel him with her hands.

"What is it?" she mumbles, blinking away sleep.

"I don't know." He feels concerned. Anxious, maybe. "Something. Down in the valley."

"Dangerous?" Her heart stutters, and now she's fully awake, and afraid. "Templars?"

"No, love, nothing like that. Just…" He catches her hand and squeezes it hard. "I think it's Hawke."

It can't be. Hawke is _dead_. Or, if it _is_ Hawke, that's so much worse. "How do you know?"

He breathes out, a long low sound. "I can feel him down there." 

_What do you mean?_ But then she _thinks_. "The binding?"

"Yes," he says, and he sounds _so_ sorry. She sits up, wraps her arms around his ribcage and leans her cheek against his shoulder.

"It never severed."

"No."

"And you think he's still alive."

"Of course!" He twists in her grip, and she can't see his face in the dark but she can feel him there, at the end of _their_ binding, shocked by her doubt. "How could he not be?"

Because she knew, when he died, when Justice flowed into him like water and tried to catch the last bit of him that _was_ alive. She knew because Hawke would never have hurt poor Carver as badly as he did then, would never have torn holes in the Templars the way he did after, would have come after them before this, would never have--

Left them. Never would have left Anders alone. Not Hawke. 

But Justice is another matter entirely.

The thought of Justice in the valley below chills her to her bones.

Anders wants to get up, to go and look, and she cannot stop him. So she pulls on her clothes, finds her staff (hidden beneath the straw) and follows him when he goes down to see what, exactly, has tracked them all the way from Kirkwall.

It's standing in shadows, but she knows where it is, can feel the magic billowing out of it, and recognises it. Not Hawke. Or maybe only a little Hawke, but mostly Justice, lurking there like a ghost.

Anders clears his throat. "I know you're there. Don't hide." And his voice softens. "Hawke, _please_."

It will be worse than the end of the world if she has to fight it for this, for Anders and a tiny safe place that may not even hold til dawn. But she will do it, if she must. She has a knife in her palm, ready to cut, but Anders reaches back, wrapping his hand about her wrist, a very definite _no_.

The thing that is no longer Hawke steps out into the moonlight.

"Anders," it says, and Merrill is so _angry_. How dare it _sound_ like him? How dare it wear his flesh and come to them, as though it is still _him_ , still mortal and _alive_?

Anders holds out his hands. "Hullo. Fancy seeing you here."

"I followed you," it says, and Merrill _hates_ it. Trapping Anders in the Fade as it did, hating her as it did, ruining _everything_ by destroying the Chantry as it did. If not for _it_ they would never have had to run.

Hawke might still be dead but …

Anders clasps it by the shoulders, and leans in to press his brow against its cheek. "Are you coming with us, then?"

Justice turns to face her over Anders' shoulder, eyes burning in the pre-dawn. "So you're together, now."

"You can't be angry about that," Anders tells it, and he sounds like he's smiling. "After what you put us through."

The thing in Hawke's shape says nothing, but it is a significant nothing, no denial or argument.

Anders sighs. "Come up with us."

It hesitates. But in the end it does what Anders wants. 

They take it into the barn, and Anders lays it down in the straw, but then he curls around Merrill, his arms warm and welcome and she can't _bear_ it.

"It isn't Hawke," she whispers, willing him to believe it.

"Are you sure?" 

Is she? She is, because Hawke had never _hated_ her and she can feel the hatred spilling off of this creature, this spirit wearing Hawke's skin like a cloak. 

Anders doesn't seem to agree, and goes to sleep by her side, blissfully unaware of the danger lying so close beside. Merrill keeps watch for him, her knife clutched in one hand, just in case, but all Justice does is lie there, staring up at the ceiling with eyes that glow, just a little, in the dark

In the morning, Anders introduces it to Evangeline, and then takes it off into the fields, to work the soil and mend fences and all sorts of supposedly manly things, while Merrill labours in the house, fetching and carrying and cleaning until suddenly the day is done.

Evangeline frowns at them all. "Well, you've done good enough," she says, though it's clear how much she doesn't trust any of them. "Why don't you stay a few days?"

Anders reaches for Merrill's hand, twisting their fingers together. "I'd like that."

Justice smiles like Hawke, banters like him, is trying so hard to _be_ him that Merrill (feels sorry for him) wonders if Justice even knows what he is now.

Where is Hawke? Gone away, or gone somewhere deep, or simply dead. She can't be sure. Creators, she can't be sure of anything.

The Hawke-shape meets her eye, and his are _blue_ , as blue as a summer sky. 

But he smiles, and it looks _so like him_ that she can't be angry. Or, at least, she can pretend as well as he can. Anyway, Anders is _so happy_ , and the sight of it is heart-warming, something she wants to protect, at all costs. 

Well, nearly all.

And it might not last long. At least they can have _this_ , just for a little while.

So they stay.

* * *

Nicholas Barker, Lieutenant of the Order of Knights Templar in Kirkwall, to Carver Hawke, Captain of the Order of Knights Templar in Starkhaven, on this Day -- of ---- in the Year of Our Maker 9:38 Dragon, Greetings and the Blessings of the Light on you, my esteemed Friend.

It is with the greatest pleasure that I write to inform you of the birth of Simon Harald Barker, whose Name was this day written in the Annals of the Chantry in Kirkwall. He is Whole and Wholesome, and good in my eyes beyond Words. His Mother sends her Greetings. She has still declined to be wed, though I have Insisted at some length, but I do not consider this in any way a Stain upon young Simon's character, nor hers. I am content that he is Loved, and that his Mother has returned to her Duties here in the Gallows. My Sister has graciously undertaken the care of his Person, though I Plan to attend to matters of his Spirit and Character, and his Mother insists she will Educate him in 'the Rest', though I do not yet know what she means by it. I look forward to my next Free Day, when I may see him and spend a full turn of the Sun with his self, which is as Dear to me as any in Thedas.

My Lady (Knight Corporal) Ruvena continues well, though she is much belligerent in her dissatisfaction that you cannot be with Us in this Time. I know Her well enough to understand that her many complaints stem from a deep regard for your self, and enclose from her a Letter that I trust you will read through such a Lens.

You are much missed in our Barracks, such of it as remains. I believe that Knight Commander Cullen would welcome you Home, should you ever choose to rejoin us here in Kirkwall, however I know too that you Cannot be Spared from your needful Post in Starkhaven. It is my fervent Belief that you are a Credit to the Order in whatever capacity you choose to undertake, and I wish you Well in All Things, as always.

Please convey my regards to Royal Guard Captain Fenris. I trust that all is Well between you, and hope that all continues Well in your Household.

Perhaps one day I will look upon your face again. On that day, I will gladly raise my Cup to you, and to our Friendship, which means more to me than you may know. Though we have not always seen Eye to Eye, I feel your many Kindnesses keenly, and think well of You when you are (much) in my thoughts. 

I would be grateful if you should Write so I might know that you have received this Missive.

May the Maker Smile on you all your Days. I remain, your Friend.

* * *

TO Carver Hawke etcetera

WELL I HAD THE BABY. I hope you're happy it was AWFUL and you weren't even HERE and I would have THROTTLED YOU if you had been so LUCKY FOR YOU!!!

Baby looks like his da already and I don't see how when he's so small and fat. Looked like a cut of brisket when he came out but there's something about him anyways. Don't laugh but I'm glad of his fat little face. (B will not shut up never did I ever see him SO FUCKING PLEASED WITH HIMSELF like he even did much of anything it's embarrassing please tell him to stop.)

AND I GOT TO KEEP MY COMMISSION! I'm pretty sure B pestered Cullen to DEATH over it but he caved all the same so who cares? Maybe he's just glad of the few of us what stuck around. In any case I got a nice bit of ink to celebrate and Barks too and a couple of the boys wanted in so we're all walking around with Baby's initials etched into us HAHA. Little bastard better STAY ALIVE is all I'm saying.

I saw your pirate friend down the docks last month and swapped gossip so don't be surprised if she drops in to see you.

WRITE BACK YOU ASS! If you're not coming home it's the least you can do.

Love to Moi and Mags and your Fen.

XOXO R

* * *

"Mama is swelling," Tully announces over dinner, and Carver has no idea what he means by it until Fenris tuts and corrects him.

"The word is ‘gravid’."

"Mama is gravid," Tully says, very pleased with himself.

Carver glances down the table. Orana is blushing, and, huh, yeah she does look sort of ... pregnant.

"It is impolite to say such a thing in public," Fenris says seriously. He has been attempting to teach Tully manners and etiquette, with limited success, probably because Fenris has never before minded anything Tully did and thus Tully does everything.

In any case, Tully seems undeterred, picking over his plate. "Mama will have a baby and she will be my sister."

Orana smiles, brushing the hair out of Tully’s eyes with her fingers. "A sister? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Uh," Carver starts, and then he stops. He can’t ask who the father is. It would be really, really rude. And none of his business. And, the way Fenris tells it, she probably won’t say anyway.

He busies himself with the steamed fish and rice dish Orana makes every seventhday, in spite of Fenris’ protests. It is good for him, she says, and that he ought to set an example for the boy. This is the only argument that ever seems to work on Fenris, and so every seventhday Fenris eats his fish and doesn’t complain aloud, but he can’t seem to help the tragic and solemn faces he makes as he does it.

"Only mamas make babies," Tully says sagely, and Carver can’t really argue with the logic of that. "Because of their organs."

"This is true. Also impolite to say in public." Fenris frowns a little. "Do you know how they make them?"

Carver nearly chokes on his food. "Fenris!" This is _completely_ not how he had this conversation as a child. This is ... weird. " _That’s_ impolite to say in bloody public!"

Again, Tully doesn’t seem concerned. "The papa puts his part in her and then the baby grows inside," he says brightly. "And sometimes there is one baby and sometimes more. Like the puppies. Did you know, Ser Carver," and Tully turns to him, those honey-brown eyes glittering with the joy of knowing things, "that babies start off small like fish and then get bigger and bigger inside until they can come out? They have to start small or they won’t fit inside the mama’s organs, but then her organs stretch to make the space for them."

"Er, yeah. Um ... I did know that." _Maker_.

"Did you ever make a baby, Uncle?"

Fenris snorts. "I do not believe so. It is possible. I do not know."

"Did you, Ser Carver?"

"I ... um." There is a rule about lying to Tully. Fenris has forbidden it. Still, this is an awkward conversation. "Yeah. Maybe. I did."

Fenris shifts, blinking at Carver in what Carver hopes is just surprise. "Indeed?"

"Where is it?"

Orana brushes the hair from Tully’s cheek. "Hush, darling. Not so many questions."

"But I want to know!"

"Yes," Fenris agrees stiffly. "I also would like to know."

He sounds unhappy, and that makes Carver unhappy. "She lives with her mother," Carver says, watching Fenris carefully. "And ... the mother has a husband. So ... he looks after her."

"Like Uncle?" Tully steals a bit of fish from Fenris’ plate, beaming at him. "Uncle looks after me and mama. And you, Ser Carver!"

"Sort of like that."

"You must not touch other people’s food," Orana chides, catching Tully’s hands and kissing his fingertips. "Do not."

"But Uncle hates fish. I’m _helping_."

When Orana isn’t looking, Tully steals another bit of Fenris’ fish and eats it with his fingers. "Some babies hatch out of eggs, like the birds. Mama, will you make a nest for the baby?"

And off they go again.

"How does he come up with all this?" Carver says later, padding barefoot across the bedroom floor. (Orana makes him take his boots off downstairs, but she has polished all the floors smooth as the frozen surface of a pond and is slowly layering them with ragwork rugs, and it’s so much nicer than rough wood or stone.) "All those questions. Maker, he wants to know _everything_."

Fenris rests his hands on the windowsill, looking out over the city kissed pink and peach by the setting sun. "It is in the nature of children to ask. This world is vast and intricate, and the unknown can be frightening. I would rather arm him with the knowledge to overcome fear than let him wallow in terrified ignorance. Such crimes that are committed when good men do too much and know too little."

"And you want Tully to be a good man, one day." Carver leans back against the window frame to examine Fenris’ profile. The sunset highlights the sharpness of his cheekbones, of his jaw, the long slope of his nose, and it makes Carver’s chest ache to look at him. Still his Fenris, handsome and ageless and looking so solemn, and Carver thinks he knows why. "Hey. I never told you. I’m sorry."

"It is your business."

Carver _knows_ that stiff little voice, and he sighs. " _Fen_ ris."

The both know the rules. _No hiding. No lies._ Fenris nods and takes a deep breath. "Was it before we began?"

"No, not then. When I was in Starkhaven. The first time."

Fenris glances up, eyes luminous in the rich orange light. "How did it end?"

"She didn't think I'd make a good husband. And I didn’t even know there was a child until I got back and--" he shakes his head. "Anyway, Rosie’s husband came home, and I don’t ... I’m not really ... it’s not like it matters. The girl doesn’t even know about me." Not that he minds. Not really. Not unless he thinks about it.

Fenris’ fingers brush the back of his hand, cool and dry and comforting. "Tell me her name."

"Ilys."

"Ilys Hawke?"

"Ilys Monroe, I think."

"And she resembles you?"

"I ... maybe? Dark-haired little thing. Green eyes. Freckles." He takes a deep breath. "She might be mine. She might not. I don’t care."

Except, of course, it’s Fenris, who flattens a hand on Carver’s chest and looks up with eyes that see right through him. "You do."

"I don’t much. I've no right."

Fenris sighs. " _So_ much. I do not think you are capable of ceasing to care about anything once you have begun." He runs his hand over Carver’s shoulder and Carver hisses as it drags across the bandages under his shirt.

"What is ..." Fenris splays his fingers against Carver’s arm, feeling out the dressings. "Are you wounded?"

"...not _wounded_ ..."

"Oh. This foolishness again."

"I _like_ tattoos."

"I pray it is not another wolf," Fenris growls, and Carver takes his hands, squeezing them.

"Shhhh. Hey? It’s just ink. And it makes me happy."

Fenris grumbles over it, even as he chivvies Carver out of his clothes and into the dress uniform Orana has laid out for him. It's white, stitched over with a flaming sword, and the brigandine is too short, flaring over his hips in a way that feels awfully foppish. The trousers, though…

"These trousers are too tight! Orana's taken them in too much." Normally she's so good at it, but this time she's made a mistake, he's certain.

Fenris arches an eyebrow at him. "Turn and show me."

Carver does, propping his hands on his hips and scowling to himself. There's no time to fix them, no time to get others. Maybe he can wear his uniform trousers. They probably don't go, but at least they fit.

"Well?" Carver glances over his shoulder. "Fenris! Are you staring at my arse?"

"Yes," Fenris tells him, his mouth curving into a smirk. He doesn't stop, though, instead reaches out to _pinch_ Carver hard on the rear. "They seem perfectly tailored."

"But this brigandine's too _short_. It doesn't hide anything. Everyone'll be able to see my _arse_!"

"I can only hope that 'everyone' will appreciate how lucky they are," Fenris says, patting him with a sort of satisfied possessiveness, and Carver huffs, because Fenris' coat is cut long, covering him in red-embroidered-black halfway down his thighs. Of course it is. Orana wouldn't trim _his_ clothes to show him off like a, a... some kind of Orlesian fancy-man.

He wears the trousers, though, because Fenris insists and he doesn't have much choice. He's awkward on the whole walk up to the palace, tugging at his hems and fidgeting until Fenris points out how that only draws attention to it. The indignity of it makes him blush every time he catches someone looking at him, and Fenris keeps lagging behind to gawk, and he's awful, just awful. Carver doesn't know why he puts up with it.

Well. (Fenris catches his eye and grins, broad and careless, and Carver feels his heart skip to see it.) Maybe he does know.

There's a line of people at the gate, but Fenris walks up to the head of it and speaks to the guards on duty -- _his_ guards, of course -- and gets a handful of respectful salutes as they're waved in. Special treatment for their Captain, and all, and Carver can't help grinning over it. Fenris is all important now. It feels good.

Fenris leads the way up, past the curtseying and bowing servants, to the door of the ballroom where the herald stops them.

"Guard Captain Fenris. Knight Captain Carver." The man bows fussily. "One moment, if you will, and I will announce you."

Carver's a little nervous, to be honest. A royal ball isn't something he's used to, after all, and especially not used to being invited by name on a square of stiff card written out in crimson ink. But he remembers the ball in the Viscount's Keep, back in Kirkwall so long ago, and he's pretty sure all he has to do is stand around drinking wine and not disgrace the Order. Or embarrass Fenris. That would be _worse_ really, so he resolves not to do it if he can help it.

" _Fenris, Captain of the Royal Guard, and Carver Hawke of House Amell, Captain of the Order of Knights Templar!_ "

He shouts it loud enough it makes Carver wince, but Fenris turns to him with a familiar rueful smile.

"Shall we?" he asks, offering his arm. Carver tucks his hand into the crook of Fenris' elbow, awkward about it, but glad of his confidence.

"As you say," and he lets Fenris lead him wherever he likes _for_ whatever he likes, which is all Carver has ever wanted, when all's said and done.

* * *

His boots, at least, are comfortable. Yolanda had set them out specifically for dancing, though Sebastian had told her again and _again_ that he didn't mean to dance tonight.

"The Prince of Starkhaven _must_ dance at his own ball," Yolanda said, flicking a clothes-brush over his shoulder and eyeing him critically. "That'll do, Your Highness. Very handsome indeed."

He would have argued with her but the reflection in the glass had been … handsomely dressed, certainly, in fine white wool stitched over with black and crimson. And it wouldn't do to argue with his valet, even if she'd known him since childhood and had never really stopped thinking of him as a foppish little thing, more concerned with his clothes than anything so philosophic as his soul.

And. He wasn't a Chantry Brother anymore. Isn't, and never will be again. Perhaps it is necessary that he dress the part of a prince even if he has never felt it. A year, and it still feel false, a cloak pulled over himself that he cannot shed, except in private moments with the few friends he has who will allow him to be, simply, Sebastian.

Released from Yolanda's scrutiny, he goes down, collecting a gaggle of hangers-on as he goes: his personal guard; servants casting bows and curtsies at him; junior nobles who offer the shallowest of earnest compliments; Marilyn, with a paper to be signed, and then another, and he forces himself to read them before affixing his signature.

And then he takes a deep breath at the head of the stairs, centering himself before going down into the fray.

The ballroom is nicely appointed and beautifully decorated. Beautifully but sparely, with flowers from the palace gardens and old cloths from the stores, as per his instruction. He has no interest in wasting coin on a show of excess, though he knows the importance of displaying Starkhaven's wealth and inviting his particular guests (particular? They number almost two hundred, how could it be _particular_?) to enjoy the bounty of their prince's favour. Marilyn agreed that it could be done very modestly and should be, with the spare coin allocated to the waterworks project he's been labouring over -- he checks himself. He has not been _labouring_ over it, all he has done is work over numbers and proposals, looking for the best way to achieve what he wants without bankrupting the Crown. Fresh water, easily available throughout the city, even (especially) in the poor quarter. Quarters. Maker, how he resents the fact that Goran has left him with more than one neighbourhood in which it is _acceptable_ to fetch and carry half a day _every_ day to gather clean water enough to sustain a family. 

So. He cannot avoid the expense of a ball, he's been told, but he can _limit_ it, and send the gold on to be spent on more important things. Like the Chantry school, and the farmers, and repairing the docks, and--

And now he goes down into it, his name cried out too loud, and he has to _smile_ as though he _enjoys_ it, turning his head and raising a hand to acknowledge the luminaries summoned here tonight to celebrate him.

He takes a deep breath and plunges into the midst, clasping hands and spending compliments like coppers amongst them, and … he spots Fenris and Tristram holding down a corner, both of them drinking and eating from the platters on offer. Both of them are neatly turned out, though Trish has found a way to turn his dress uniform into a messy parody of itself, and Sebastian can't look away from the way he throws back his head, laughing full-throated at something Fenris has said, nor how Fenris smirks into his cup, eyes cutting sidelong to search out the crowd. No, to find Carver, sitting in a chair beside Xavia, the two of them talking low and close and ignoring the tumult surrounding them. She's _beautiful_ , in a low-necked gown he's sure cost a pretty penny, and as much as he's annoyed with himself for requiring one of her he's glad she has found an opportunity to array herself. He knows she welcomes an excuse for a dress, knows she takes care over it, knows that, all the same, she's a skilled enough warrior to best him if ever they went toe to toe with knives. And still, she's lovely, and Sebastian _wishes_.

If only he could go over to them and sink into their corner, and eat his own food, drink his own wine, and banter with his own friends, instead of--

"Your Highness!" Another cousin, with another carefully couched request. 

Sebastian holds his sighs, and gives up his attention. He _was_ a Chantry brother, he knows as well as any how to listen and nod and give every indication that he believes the speaker to be worth every precious heartbeat of his time.

But how time runs through his fingers now.

There's no going back. He can't have that life again. And, if he's honest with himself, he doesn't want it. He doesn't want this one, either, but it is what the Maker has put before him, and he must live it out and do his best. And, of course, he cannot be ungrateful for it. Not when it is so damnably comfortable.

Still. 

He listens, and nods, and says, "Oh, aye," until the words dry in his throat, and they have set him up on this cursed _dais_ , half a foot above the crowd, so he and the chosen few can look down upon the unchosen many from a place of distinction. And he _must_ , this is his life now, and this is exactly why he had never wanted it, but still, _still_ , if anyone else could do it (could care about the _water_ situation, and the roads, and the schools) he would give it up to them _so gladly_.

And then. He turns, his gaze drawn as if by magic to see.

Just a flash of green silk in a room where green silk is out of fashion, hair spilling dark and luscious over bare shoulders in a room where loose hair is _dowdy_ , and he stops and stares, sees the swish of her hips, the hand she flicks at a man who has come too close, the way she turns and looks up, her mouth gone wide and inviting in the moment when her eyes catch his own.

Isabela.

Ah, he must. So he goes to her, because she is, at the end of it all, everything he has ever wanted for himself.

* * *

The shape of her has burned into his mind, and so when Fenris sees her he fixes on her, tracking her throughout the room, and when he sees Sebastian take notice of her he thinks, _No,_ but also, _Yes,_ and also he knows that she is … all herself. Their own Isabela, and only a threat to his prince if she indeed wishes him harm. But. She does not, he is very nearly certain, and so.

Sebastian crosses the room, walking through the mass of his courtiers as though they are nothing. Fenris sees his face, sees the joy in it, all that unexpected wonder. It is beautiful. It is dangerous. Sebastian is a prince and Isabela is … Isabela. Glorious and wonderful and dangerous, and Fenris wonders if this is the moment when Sebastian will break the only vows he has left unbroken for something that can only destroy him.

"Who is _that_?" Tristram whistles low, craning his neck. "What a _beauty_."

"Is that _Isabela_?" Carver has come up on Fenris' other side. He sounds incredulous and then he laughs, his grin splitting his face. "What's she doing here?"

Tristram snorts. "Our noble prince, by the look of it."

"Augh, _no_ ," and Carver shakes his head. "That's just … no, don't even joke."

Fenris sees Sebastian take her hand, sees her smile and lift her chin, a perfect lady. Yes. That is exactly what Isabela has come here for. More fool Carver that he does not see it.

"Maker, she's _lovely_." Tristram takes a step back, cocking his head. "I'd be a poor friend indeed if I didnae do my part for Valery now, when he needs it." 

He's turned before Fenris can stop him, has approached the musicians playing in their alcove. They falter to a stop -- Fenris twists to see -- and then begin again but this time it is something lively, and Fenris looks back to see Sebastian leading Isabela into the space set aside for dancing.

Isabela tosses her head, her bare arms coming up to form an enticing shape; Sebastian bows low, and then--

They are beautiful together, too lovely for words, moving each of them around the other in a way that draws the eye, and Fenris cannot look away. He has known, on some level, that there has been _something_ between them all these years, but to see it played out so publicly is a shock. They are made for one another, a pirate and a rogue, so perfectly matched that Fenris cannot help but wonder what, exactly, they want of one another.

But Tristram is right. It seems obvious.

Carver lets out a long breath. "Maker's fucking … I mean, I knew they could _dance_. Did I tell you how Sebastian danced at Tristram and Xavia's wedding? They all did. It was … well. A lot like this."

"Tristram and Xavia are dancing _now_ ," Fenris says absently. They are, making a good show of it too, and more than one other couple have joined them on the floor but the crowd has eyes only for the Prince of Starkhaven and his mystery woman, and Fenris thinks, _No,_ but also, _Yes._

Sebastian seems happy with Isabela in his arms. Fenris wonders that he had not noticed how unhappy Sebastian has been before now, hiding it with his smiles. Since Kirkwall. A year, and--

"Do, uh, do _you_ want to dance?"

Fenris looks up. Carver shifts his feet, his mouth making a sheepish shape and his eyes are nervous, glancing down and up and to the side as if he regrets making the offer. "You dislike dancing."

"I'm _bad_ at dancing," Carver says, shrugging his shoulders. "But if you want to, I'd do it."

So earnest. And honest. His _lover_ , who hates to be made a spectacle but will brave it because he believes that this is a thing Fenris might want, and he is nearly always willing to indulge Fenris' wants.

And Fenris does want, wants to make a spectacle of themselves, this once, before Sebastian's gathered gentry. 

Is that wrong? Carver's shy smile says not.

So Fenris holds out a hand. "If you will, then."

Carver grins, catching Fenris' hand and bringing it to his mouth to brush his lips against Fenris' knuckles. "You'll have to lead, Fenris, you know that, yeah?"

 _His_ lover, broad-shouldered and handsome and willing and all _his_. "I look forward to it."

So he turns Carver out onto the floor, catches his hands and puts them where he wants them. Carver follows, obedient in this in the same way that he is in _bed_ , following Fenris' lead and checking for cues. Watching and listening with every line of his body, as he does on a battlefield, finding the spaces Fenris leaves for him and inserting himself where he is needed. He is not a _good_ dancer. He is, in honesty, very bad, but he minds Fenris' feet and does not crowd him, lets himself be led, allows Fenris to rule him in this, and how he _smiles_ , all the while.

"Is this okay?" he whispers, and Fenris leans up to him, puts his face into the hollow of Carver's throat, presses his lips there for a moment.

"Yes," he says, because it is, it is _so good_.

The song plays out to its end, and Fenris wishes it could go on forever, his hands on Carver and Carver's hands on him, before the cream of Starkhaven -- his Carver, all his, conspicuously so before them all.

Carver stumbles and throws his head back, laughing at his own clumsiness, glancing at Fenris to see if he's laughing too. So Fenris smiles, clutching him close, and oh, how he loves him, forever and ever…

"I'm sorry," Carver gasps, his hands closing on Fenris' wrists. "Next time, I'll do better, I swear."

"Is that a thing that is possible?" Fenris asks, drawing Carver from the floor. Carver laughs again, one hand tightening on Fenris' as he follows.

"Do my best. Is that good enough for you?"

Fenris looks back at him, his broad, scarred, handsome face, the shape of his mouth, and how obvious he is when he loves. It's too much. Again, he doesn't know how to express, for himself, how he matches it. Everything, in Carver's face.

But he tries. "Everything you do is more than enough for me."

And Carver's mouth goes weak, this soft smile he can't seem to contain, and Fenris just…

How can he still want this? How can he not have tired of it? But he has not, feels it in his gut that he will never, that this smile is the smile that will, forever, have the power to strip him to his bones.

"You are, always, everything I want for myself, and will defend, for myself."

He realises he had said it aloud only when Carver's eyes widen, and narrow, and Carver smirks in a way--

"So you say." And Carver ducks his head to press his mouth against Fenris own, his lips salt and wine and so soft. "You too, always." Carver kisses him again, and it is not the kiss of a man who means ever to leave him, nor of one who fears what anyone else might think. "Do you need to stay? I mean," and his hands slide down Fenris' sides, "Isabela's here. Is that something you need to stay for?"

It isn't. Fenris looks at them, dancing another round, and he thinks Sebastian will be safe with her. If not, well. He will have a word with Ygraine before he leaves, to ensure she is ready for anything, but he thinks she will not need to be.

So. He tilts his head, catching Carver's bright, eager eye. "I do not. Shall I take you home then?"

Carver grins, like his face will break from it, and nods. "Yeah. Take me wherever you want."

So Fenris does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! We're done. My deadline for this was my birthday this year and it's still technically my birthday because I'm not (technically) asleep. This monster of a thing is DONE.
> 
> Except. It isn't, really. There are side stories I want to tell, (particularly what Sebastian and Isabela get up to at the end of this) so I'll probably add more bits. If you want them then I suggest subscribing to the series.
> 
> Meanwhile, I must thank people for helping me write this huge thing. I had stopped writing for a very long time before I started this, and I've learned a LOT while writing it, so it's definitely been Important Writer Development. I couldn't have done it without Vintar, who originally encouraged me to write things they didn't actually care about beyond the fact that I was writing them because they are Good People. And I really couldn't have persisted without Wargoddess, who gifted me with chapter-by-chapter comments that spurred me to write more and BETTER, and has always been a magnificent enabler. To my repeat commenters also, thank-you so much. I can't name you all, I might forget someone and feel rotten about it. But please know that you Made This Happen. (It's partially your fault, I'm just saying.)
> 
> Also, thankyou to the people who read this right to the end. I haven't replied to every comment, because I felt embarrassed about it, as if I was somehow a massive wanker for wanting to say "THANKYOU SO MUCH JFC OMG" to each and every one of you, but please know I have READ your comments and loved every last one of them. Without you? I would have given up long ago. ALSO I love the kudos. Sometimes it's hard to know what you want to say, or maybe you don't like a thing enough to say anything about it, so I understand. Thank-you for those kudos, all the same. They did help. Comments are more satisfying, but if you can't/don't want to comment? Kudos is GREAT.
> 
> AND TO YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE WHO HAVE WRITTEN RESPONSE FIC OR REMIXED THIS OR DRAWN FANART OR MADE FANMIXES OR COSPLAYED OR DONE OTHER THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT... I cannot express my utter shock and delight that anyone would do such wonderful things. You are magnificent. (Also, send me a link so I can link to you, I am shit at bookmarking and am generally just terrible. DON'T BE SHY!) Why are you so kind? I don't know. It's a miracle. Bless you, you lovely people.
> 
> I'm very sad that this is over. It's been five years of my life and I will miss you all.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Taste of Regret](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1661594) by [wargoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess)




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